The  Library 
of  the 
Minneapolis  Society 
of  Fine  Arts 

PRESENTED  BY 
PHILIP  LITTLE,  JR. 
IN  MEMORY  OF 
PHILIP  LITTLE 
1942 


I 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/studyofartistswa01stur 


STUDY  OF  THE  ARTISTS  WAY 
OF  WORKING 


^OUTH  porch  of  the  Erechtheion,  Athens,  date 
uncertain  ( about  jgo  B.  C).  'The  finest  known 
piece  of  Grecian  architectural  sculpture.  Restora- 
tions can  be  seen  in  the  superstructure,  in  the  base  on 
which  the  caryatids  stand,  and  in  the  right-hand 
figure.  The  second  figure  from  the  left  is  a  terra- 
cotta copy  of  the  original  given  in  Fig.  190.  See 
Chapters  XXIV  and  XXV L 


■ 

i 

- 


A  STUDY 


OF  THE 

ARTIST  S  WAY  OF  WORKING 

IN  THE  VARIOUS  HANDICRAFTS 
AND  ARTS  OF  DESIGN 


BY 


RUSSELL   STURGIS,  A.M.,  Ph.D. 

Fellow  of  the  American  Institute  of  Architects 

Author  of  "  European  Architecture,  a  Historical  Study,"  "  How  to  Judge 
Architecture,"  "The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture,"  etc.,  etc., 
and  editor  and  chief  author  of  "  Dictionary  of 
Architecture  and  Building  " 


Volume  I. 


NEW  YORK 
DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 
1905 


copykight,  1905, 
By  Dodd,  Mead  and  Company 

All  rights  reserved 


Published,  October,  1905 


662  S 


THE   UNIVERSITY   PRESS,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


DEDICATED 

WITH   ADMIRATION  AND  UNDYING   GRATITUDE   TO  THE 

MANY    ARTISTS    AND     SKILLED      ARTISANS   TO  THE 

SCULPTORS  AND  CARVERS,  PAINTERS  AND  DRAUGHTSMEN, 
SILVERSMITHS  AND  BLACKSMITHS,  POTTERS  AND  GLASS- 
MAKERS,  MASONS  AND  JOINERS,  PRINTERS  AND  ENGRAVERS, 
ARCHITECTS  AND  DECORATIVE  DESIGNERS,  WHO  DURING 
FORTY  YEARS    HAVE    BEEN    MY    TEACHERS    IN    FINE  ART 


Preface 


IT  is  an  explanatory  book,  which  is  here  offered  to 
the  reader.  It  is  not  a  History  of  Art  in  any 
sense;  it  is  a  treatise  on  the  ways  in  which  the 
artist's  conceptions  are  formed  and  take  visible 
shape.  No  attempt  is  made  to  follow  chronological 
order  or  to  dwell  upon  the  sequence  of  styles,  nor  is 
any  attempt  made  to  dwell  upon  national  peculiarities 
of  design  and  to  differentiate  the  spirit  of  artistic  work  in 
different  races  of  mankind.  A  given  artistical  process 
may  be  in  its  nature  and  its  results  essentially  the  same 
to-day  as  under  the  kings  of  the  Fourth  Dynasty.  Now, 
it  is  with  the  artistical  processes  only,  and  what  they 
reveal,  that  this  book  is  concerned.  The  purpose  is  in 
every  case  to  ask  the  questions  :  What  was  the  artist  in 
search  of  as  he  wrought  his  work  of  art?  —  How  did  he 
achieve  the  desired  result  ?  —  to  ask  these  questions,  and, 
if  possible,  to  answer  them. 

When  artistic  manual  work  is  in  the  way  of  being 
done,  that  is  to  say,  when  an  object  is  being  made  or  a 
surface  treated  in  a  certain  way  by  the  hand  of  the  artist, 
with  the  purpose  of  producing  as  much  as  practicable  of 
beauty  or  effectiveness  of  some  kind,  the  physical  opera- 
tion, the  way  in  which  the  tool  is  handled  and  is  made  to 
affect  the  material  which  it  attacks,  is  inseparable  from  the 

[vii] 


PREFAC E 


artistic  purpose.  Suppose  that  we  were  to  try  to  analyze 
the  speech  of  a  fluent  talker,  who  has  also  knowledge 
and  ideas,  and  who  is  engaged  for  the  moment  with  some 
serious  subject  :  The  mind  of  that  talker  is  at  the  same 
time  producing  thoughts  from  his  store  of  memories  and 
of  impressions,  and  drawing  conclusions  from  those  memo- 
ries and  impressions  ;  it  determines  at  the  same  moment 
the  action  of  the  organs  of  speech  in  producing  certain 
sounds,  and  still,  at  the  same  moment,  it  is  preparing  the 
thoughts  which  are  to  follow,  and  almost  the  words  in 
the  next  sentence  or  clause.  Try  to  explain  to  the  satis- 
faction of  a  person  who  cannot  speak  nor  hear,  but  who 
can  read  writing  understandingly,  how  the  mental  proc- 
esses and  the  vocal  organs  work  together  in  producing 
intelligible  and  intelligent  speech,  and  then  you  may  go 
on  to  explain  just  how  the  mental  processes  and  the  hand 
holding  the  tool  work  together  in  producing  an  original 
pattern  or  in  shaping  a  block  of  wood  to  a  decorative 
figure.  It  is  to  this  subject  that  is  devoted  Part  III,  the 
Fine  Arts  of  Hand-Work.  There  are  other  Fine  Arts 
which  are  not  directlv  connected  with  Hand-Work,  and 
those  are  treated  in  Part  IV.  This  is,  then,  an  attempt 
to  show  the  way  in  which  the  artist's  thought  seeks  its 
expression  in  artistic  manipulation  ;  and  also  in  the 
direction  of  the  labors  of  subordinates. 

There  are  no  authorities  which  can  be  cited  as  having 
aided  the  author  in  preparing  the  present  work,  which 
is,  in  no  sense,  a  compilation.  The  author's  onlv  au- 
thorities are  the  pieces  themselves.  No  statement  is 
made  concerning  the  character  or  the  certain  or  probable 
method  of  production  of  any  work  of  art  without  the 

[viii] 


PREFACE 


immediate  consideration  of  a  characteristic  specimen  of 
that  art.  There  is  no  mention  of  ceramic  painting, 
except  as  made  in  the  presence  of  valuable  pieces  show- 
ing all  the  characteristics  of  the  best  decoration;  and  in 
like  manner,  no  mention  of  a  piece  ot  carving  that  was 
not  held  in  the  hand  at  the  moment  of  composing  the 
passage,  no  word  about  the  essential  nature  ot  expressional 
sculpture,  except  after  close  consideration  ot  the  full 
statement  made  by  the  sculpture  itselt  ot  its  own  nature 
and  origin. 

The  undertaking  of  such  work  implies,  theretore,  a 
lifetime  of  familiarity  with  Fine  Art  in  nearly  all  its  forms, 
and  in  nearly  all  the  stages  ot  intellectual  development  ; 
and,  in  most  cases,  a  knowledge  also  of  the  processes 
employed,  a  familiarity  gained  in  watching  the  work  going 
on,  it  not  in  practising  it.  Such  experience  comes  more 
easily  to  an  architect  engaged  in  decorative  work  than  to 
most  other  persons  ;  but  a  lifelong  habit  ot  "  making 
notes,"  mental  or  other,  has  something  to  do  with  devel- 
oping power  ot  observation  and  a  retentive  memory  ot 
such  things.  In  like  manner  the  illustrations  are  taken 
very  largely  trom  the  author's  own  collection;  and  all 
others  have  their  provenience  clearly  stated  in  the  legends. 
It  will  be  noted  that  small  objects  are  selected,  as  tar  as 
practicable.  This  is  because  the  reproduction  at  the  scale 
or  nearly  the  scale  ot  the  original  is  a  great  advantage  to 
the  student.  The  objects  whose  size  makes  this  im- 
possible, the  buildings,  the  pictures  in  public  museums, 
and  the  famous  objects  ot  decorative  art  reproduced  in 
some  of  the  pictures  are,  in  almost  every  case,  familiar 
to  the  author  by  close  and  continued  study  ot  the  origi- 

[ix] 


PREFACE 


nals,  kept  in  memory  by  the  same  photographs  which 
have  served  for  the  half-tone  blocks. 

My  sincere  acknowledgments  are  offered  to  Dr.  Wil- 
liam Popper,  Mr.  Okakura  Kakasu,  and  the  New  York 
managers  of  the  firm  of  Yamanaka  &  Co.  for  translations 
of  Persian  and  Japanese  manuscripts.  Thanks  are  due 
to  Messrs.  Tiffany  &  Co.,  Messrs.  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co., 
and  Mr.  E.  F.  Bonaventure  tor  loan  of  works  of  art. 
All  the  laces  are  from  a  collection  made  by  the  house  of 
Jesurum  &  Co.,  Venice.  The  photographs  made  from 
the  Marquand  Collection  were  taken,  with  Mr.  Kirby's 
kind  permission,  before  the  collection  was  broken  up  and 
sold  ;  and  those  of  the  A.  Sturgis  Collection  before  its 
sale  to  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History. 

R.  S. 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 
Introduction 

Page 

Chapter  One — -The  Nature  of  the  Inquiry   3 

Chapter  Two  —  The  Work  of  the  Lower  Civilizations  .     .  12 

PART  II 

The  Five  Mechanical  Processes 

Chapter  Three  —  Carving                                         „     .  33 

Chapter  Four  —  Modelling  and  Embossing     ...„.«  63 

Chapter  Five — Painting  ,     .     .     .  76 

Chapter  Six  —  Staining  and  Dyeing  ,  91 

Chapter  Seven  —  Drawing   97 

PART  III 
The  Several  Fine  Arts  of  Hand- Work 

Chapter  Eight  —  Ceramic  Art   109 

Chapter  Nine — The  Vitreous  Art   134 

Chapter  Ten  —  Metal  Work   164 

Chapter  Eleven  —  Leather  Work   192 

Chapter  Twelve  —  Textile  Art   205 

Chapter  Thirteen  —  Embroidery   237 

Chapter  Fourteen — Building   261 

Chapter  Fifteen  —  Plastering   284 

Chapter  Sixteen  —  Joinery      ...........  297 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Frontispiece.  —  South  porch  of  the  Erechtheion,  Athens,  date  uncertain 
(about  390  B.  C).  The  finest  known  piece  of  Grecian  archi- 
tectural sculpture.  Restorations  can  be  seen  in  the  superstructure, 
in  the  base  on  which  the  caryatids  stand,  and  in  the  right-hand 
figure.  The  second  figure  from  the  lett  is  a  terra-cotta  copv 
of  the  original  given  in  Fig.  190.  See  Chapters  XXIV  and 
XXVI. 

Figure  FULL  PAGE 

1  p.    Statue  by  Canova,  of  Pius  VI,  pope  1775— 1800. 

Rome,  St.  Peter's,  in  the  Confessio  .     .     .   To  face  page  43 

21.     Bust   modelled   in   wax   and    colored.  Lille, 

France;  Musee  Wicar  "  "71 

28.  Arms  of  the  Visconti  of  Milan,  painted  on  door 

of  Cabinet  in  Sacristy,  Church  of  Santa  Maria 
delle  Grazie,  Milan  (From  Gruner's  "  Lo 
Scaftale")  "  "89 

29.  Greek  vase  (Hydria)  17  inches  high,  about  500 

b.  c.  Thin  black  glaze,  the  large  panel  left 
in  the,  red  of  the  clav.  The  main  subject  is  a 
procession  of  Bacchus,  the  lower  band  is  of 
lions  and  other  beasts,  and  on  the  neck  is 
painted  Herakles  and  divinities.  The  subjects 
were  drawn  by  incised  lines  in  the  clay  before 
the  painting  was  done  (Marquand  Collection)       "       "  97 

30.  Drawing  in  black  and  white  chalk  on  gray  paper, 

attributed  to  Titian.     Louvre  Museum     .     .       "       "  98 

31.  "  Le   Combat  d'Oued-Alleg,"   31  December, 

1839.     From  the  Lithograph  by  D.  A.  M. 

RafFet,    1 804-1 860  "  "102 

37.  Greek  vase  (Amphora)  17  inches  high,  about 
600  b.  c.  The  reddish  yellow  clay  forms  the 
background,  the  bands  are  black  and  red,  and 
the  figures  of  beasts  and  fabulous  creatures  are 
in  black,  purple,  and  dark  red  (Marquand 
Collection)   .     .     .       "  "123 

[xiii] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Figure 

39.  Vase,  French  Faience:  16  inches  high.  Made 
at  Moustiers-Ste.- Marie,  in  Provence;  deco- 
ration probably  by  Olerys,  about  1740  .      To  face  page  128 

42.  Large  vase,  Japanese  hard  yellow  ware,  with 
crackled  glaze.  Province  of  Satsuma,  eigh- 
teenth century  a.  d  "       "  130 

46.     Glass     Dish.       Vitro    di    Trino  (Marquand 

Collection)  "       "  140 

50.  Hanging  Lamp,  1  1  inches  high.  Glass  en- 
graved with  acid.  The  chain,  brass,  with 
colored  wooden  beads.  Syrian  work,  uncer- 
tain epoch  "      "      1 47 

55.     Candlestick  of  Chinese    Cloisonne  enamel,  15 

inches  high  ;  seventeenth  century  a.  d.     .     .     "      "  158 

57.  Bronze  Bust,   life   size,   apparently  cut   from  a 

statue,  formerly  called  "  Plato,"  now,  rather, 
Dionysos.  Found  in  Villa  at  Herculaneum. 
Naples,  Museo  Nazionale  "       "  173 

58.  Bronze  Bust,  life  size,  apparently  a  portrait,  found 

in  Villa  at   Herculaneum.      Naples,  Museo 

Nazionale  "  "174 

60.  Wrought  Steel  Buckler,  Italian,  sixteenth  century  : 
parcel-gilt  and  dotted  with  silver  ;  diameter 
22  inches  (From  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club, 
exhibition  of  1900)  "       "  181 

70.  Cover  of  book  printed  in  1596  :  from  the  library 
of  Catherine  de  Medicis  (Techener  Histoire 
de  la  Bibliophilie)  "  "194 

95.  Gateway  of  Roman  Imperial  date  at  Athens, 
Greece.  It  connected  the  Roman  "  City  of 
Hadrian  "  with  the  Greek  "  City  of  Theseus  "     "      "  264 

98.     Timber-built  house  at  Strasburg  on  the  Rhine, 

sixteenth  century  "       "  271 

100.     Temple  of  purest  Roman  style  at  Vienne  (Isere), 

France:  thought  to  be  of  the  first  century  a.  d.     "      "  274 

107.  Florence,  Palazzo  del  Conte  Boutourlin.  Six- 
teenth-century Painting  restored  "       "  293 

115.     Siena  Cathedral  stalls  and  decorative  woodwork 

in  choir  "       "     3 1 5 

1  20.  Cupboard  in  red  cedar,  with  brass  strap  hinges, 
the  design  of  George  Fletcher  Babb,  in  1880. 
Private  house,  New  York  City  "  "327 

[  xiv  ] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  THE  TEXT 

Figure  Page 

1.  Blade  of  Paddle,  Pacific  Islands   14 

2.  Heads  of  two  Paddles,  Pacific  Islands   16 

3.  Cloth  made  of  extended  bark,  Pacific  Islands  :  pattern  in 

dark   brown   printed    from    wood    blocks    (A.  Sturgis 
Collection)   19 

4.  Four  War  Clubs,  Pacific  Islands  (A.  Sturgis  Collection)    .  26 

5.  Grass-woven  Belts,  Pacific  Islands  :  the  color  is  that  of  the 

undyed  dry  fibre  combined  with  red  and  black  (A.  Sturgis 
Collection )   29 

6.  Cloth  of  printed  bark  shown  on  a  smaller  scale  than  Fig.  3 

(A.  Sturgis  Collection)  30 

7.  Ivory  box,  total  height  5  inches  35 

7  bis.     Ivory  box,  total  height  4  inches  35 

8.  Sculpture  in  the  Round  :  ivory  statuette,  eighteenth  centurv  36 

9.  Tinted  Ivory  Relief,  4  inches  high  :  contemporary  portrait 

of  Henry  IV  of  France  37 

9  bis.  Tinted  Ivory  Relief,  4  inches  high  :  contemporary 
portrait  of  Marie  de  Medicis,  Queen  of  Henrv  IV  of 
France  38 

10.     Tomb  of    Sassetti  :    Church    of    SS.   Trinita,  Florence 

(original  in  the  building)  39 

1  I.  Metope  Relief  from  south  flank  of  the  Parthenon  :  head  of 
man  nearly  free  from  background  (Original  in  British 
Museum)  40 

12.  Concavo-convex  Relief:    Temple  of  Kalabsheh  in  upper 

Egypt  (the  ancient  Talmis )   (Original  in  the  building)  41 

13.  Chinese  box  :  dark  red  carved  lacquer  (tio-tsi)  ....  43 

15.  Chinese  Cup  of  dark  red  Wood  46 

16.  Tomb  at  Limyra,  Asia  Minor  (From  Petersen   and  Von 

Luschan)  48 

17.  Portal  of  Chapel  at  Convent  of  Batalha,  Portugal     ...  52 

18.  Lower  half  of  wrought  steel  Door,  18  inches  wide,  fifteenth 

century  (Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club,  1900)   ....  53 

19.  La  Danse  de  1'Echarpe,  by  A.  Leonard.     Figures  in  Biscuit 

of  Sevres  Porcelain  (Sevres  Exhibit,  Baumgart)  ...  66 

20.  Study  in  clay,  monument  to  Watteau,  by  Lormier  ...  69 

[xv] 


ILLUSTRA  TIONS 


Figure  Page 

22.  Portrait  medallion  in  pressed  horn,  Frederic  Henrv,  Prince 

of  Orange,  signed   by  John  Osborn,    1626  (Church, 

A.  H.,  and  others,  "Some  Minor  Arts")    ....  72 

23.  FLtui,  Repousse  work  in  gold,  French,  eighteenth  century   .  74 

24.  Patch   box,  Repousse  work   in   gold,  French,  eighteenth 

century   75 

25.  Stone  Screen,  Aldenham  Church,  Herts,  England,  painted 

in  bright  red,  bright  green,  dark  blue  and  white, 
with    touches   of   gilding,    about    1480    ( Blackburne's 

"Sketches")   77 

26.  Indian  or  Persian  vase  with  thick  light  blue  glaze,  eleventh 

or  twelfth  century,  a.  d.  ( Marquand  Collection,  1903)  80 

27.  Gold  lacquer  box,  six  inches  across,  Japan,  seventeenth 

centurv,  a.  d   88 

32.  Greek  Pot:  Asiatic  taste   112 

33.  Greek  Kylix.     Black  ground.     Best  Period  .     .     .     .     .  113 

34.  Persian  plates  (Marquand  Collection)   115 

33.  Chinese  bottle,  silver  mounted   116 

36.     Faience  plate  painted  by  A.  Sandier   117 

38.     Majolica  dish  ("  La  Collection  Spitzer  "  )   126 

40.  Persian  bottles  in  dark  blue  and  pale  blue  on  bluish-white 

ground  ( Marquand  Collection )   128 

41.  Persian  tiles,  square  panel  (Marquand  Collection)    .     .     .  129 

43.  Chinese  porcelain  bowl   132 

44.  Two  small  plain  bottles  (Marquand  Collection)  .  .  .  136 
45  j  [Small  glass  bottles  of  Greco-Roman  work.  |  .  .  .  .  137 
45  bis  r  These  and  Fig.  44  from  graves  on  shores-,  .  .  .  .  137 
45  tcr]     of  Mediterranean.]                                |  .     .     .     .  138 

47.  Two  Persian  aiguieres   (Marquand  Collection)   .     .     .     .  142 

48.  Wine-glass,  seventeenth  centurv   144 

49.  Venice  bottle,  15  inches  high   145 

51.  Enamelled  tumbler   148 

52.  Tray  about  15  inches  long.     Surface  enamel  (Marquand 

Collection)   152 

53.  Small  Japanese  vase.     Enamel  on  silver    ......  134 

34.  Under  side  of  Indian  bracelet       .........  156 

[xvi] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Figure  Page 

56.     Cire  perdue  casting.     Handles,  frogs,  and  turtles  separate  .  171 

59.     Cast-iron  medallion.     Early  nineteenth  century  .     .     .     .  178 

61.  Steel  keys,  French,  seventeenth  century   183 

62.  Grille,  eighteenth  century.     Bourges,  France     .     .     .     .  184 

63.  Grille,  fourteenth  century.     Verona  .......  185 

64.  Indian  bracelet,  turquoise  side   186 

65.  Russian  enamelled  chain   187 

66.  Silver  watch,  French  eighteenth  century.     The  case  set 

with  carbuncles  and  a  tortoise-shell  medallion   .     .     .  188 

66  bis.     Gold  outer  case  of  watch.     French  eighteenth  century  .  189 

67.  Pewter  Vase   190 

68.  Persian  two-edged  Sword   190 

69.  Binding,  dark  blue  Morocco,  with  the  armorial  bearings  and 

orders  of  The  Great  Dauphin,  Son  of  Louis  XIV,  died 

171  1  (Collection  of  E.  F.  Bonaventure)   193 

71.  Binding   of  a  manuscript  Diploma  of  Bologna  University 

dated  1650   197 

72.  Binding  in  red  morocco,  "  Office  de  la  Semaine  Sainte," 

Paris,  1  69  1 .    The  Fleurs-de-lis  and  the  crowned  LL, 

mark  it  as  belonging  to  one  of  the  royal  chateaux       .     .  198 

73.  Leather  Bottle  arranged  to  be  hung  to  a   strap  over  the 

shoulder  ("La  Collection  Spitzer  "  )   202 

74.  Binding,  vellum,  painted  in  vivid  colors  and  with  gilding 

applied  on  the  smooth  surface,  without  impression     .     .  203 

75.  Japanese  brocade,  dragons,  clouds,  and  kylins  in  horizontal 

bands   215 

76.  Japanese  Brocade  woven  with  paper  strips  gilded  on  one 

side.     Pomegranates  and  Persian  Flowers   216 

77.  Oriental  carpet,  mixed  pattern  (Marquand  Collection)      .  220 

78.  Part  of  chasuble  of  Genoa  velvet   221 

79.  Modern  gold  and  silver  brocade   223 

80.  Old  Venice  gold  brocade   224 

8 1.  Part  of  chasuble,  green  silk   227 

82.  Part  of  Chinese  gown,  blue  ground    .     .     .     .     .     .     .  228 

83.  Genoa  guipure,  seventeenth  century  .......  234 

[  xvii  ] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Figure  ?age 

84.  Early  Italian  passamans  (passement)  235 

85.  False  Valenciennes  ;  Flemish  work,  eighteenth  century  .     .  236 

86.  Embroidery  in  silk  with  couching  of  gold  cord.  Japanese 

work,  eighteenth  century  240 

87.  Embroidery   on  silk,    the   flowers  and  leaves  in  relief  in 

cushions  of  yellow  silk  faced  with  gold  thread.  Persian 
work,  seventeenth  century  242 

88.  Dalmatic,  embroidered  very  heavily  in  silk  of  many  colors. 

Italian  work,  seventeenth  century  245 

89.  Part  of  a  chasuble,  embroidery  on  white  ground  with  silk  of 

many  colors.     Italian  work,  sixteenth  century     .     .     .  246 

90.  Embroidery  on  silk.     Persian  work,  seventeenth  century    .  249 

91.  Part  of  priest's  ceremonial  robe,  embroidered  in  silk,  with 

much  applique  work.     [apanese  work,  eighteenth  century  252 

92.  Needle-made  lace,  so-called  Brussels  point  254 

93.  Guipure  a  Brides,  so-called  English  point  255 

94.  Venice  Rose-point  lace  257 

96.  Chateau  of  Josselin  in  Brittany.     Court-yard  front  .     .     .  268 

97.  View   in   Nuremberg,  Bavaria  :    houses  of  sixteenth  and 

seventeenth  centuries  269 

99.     Chartres  Cathedral  :  south  porch  central  doorway.  The 

sculpture  is  of  about  1275  272 

1 01.  Florence,  Loggia  of  S.  Paolo.     Designed  by  Brunelleschi 

about  1440.    The  rondels  in  the  spandrils  by  Luca  or 
Andrea  della  Robbia  275 

102.  Frame  house,    covered   with   shingles,   at   Orange,  New 

Jersey,  designed  by  Babb,  Cook  &  Willard,  about  1887  279 

103.  Frame    house   covered  with   shingles,    at   Chestnut  Hill, 

Massachusetts.    Designed  by  Andrews,  Jaques  &  Rantoul, 
about  1886  280 

104.  Rome:  stuccoes  from  a  vaulted  room  near  the  Tiber,  work 

of  the  first  century  a.  d  286 

105.  Campagna  of  Rome.     Stuccoes  from  a  tomb  on  the  Via 

Latina.     Work  of  the  first  century  a.  d  287 

106.  Hatfield  House.     Long  gallery  ;   plaster  ceiling  of  about 

1610  288 

108.     Florence,  detail  of  Palazzo  Corsi,  Sgraffito  Decoration    .     .  295 

[  xviii  ] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Figure  Page 
109.     Part  of  a  carved  oak  chest  at  Loches  ;  carved  panels,  the 
arms  of  France  in  the  central  panel.     Work  of  about 
1500  (Private  Collection)  302 

1  10.     Cassone,   or  large   chest,  with  tempera  paintings  on  top, 

front  and  ends  (Marquand  Collection)  303 

111.  Amiens  Cathedral,  Choir  woodwork.      Details  of  canopies 

over  back  row  of  stalls  308 

112.  Cabinet  of  French  or  Flemish  work,  about  1550  (Private 

Collection  in  Austria)     .   313 

113.  Walnut  sideboard,  of  the  South  of  France,  about  1  700  a.  d.  314 

1  1 4.     Table,   about   8   feet  long,  of   about    1600  (Marquand 

Collection )  315 

116.  Siena  Cathedral.     Choir  woodwork.     Details  of  wall-lining 

behind  stalls  317 

117.  Part  of  a  writing  table,  with  veneering  of  tropical  wood  and 

mountings  of  gilded  bronze  ;  work  of  about  1725  (Private 
Collection)   319 

118.  Part  of  table,  gilded  wooden  frame,  marble  slab,  work  of 

about  1775  ( Palace  of  Versailles )  322 

119.  Table,  chair,  and  part  of  arm-chair:  work  of  Napoleon's 

reign,  1802— 1814  (Palace  of  the  Greater  Trianon)  .     .  323 


The  reproduction  on  the  title-page  is  the  obverse  of  a  coin  of  Syra- 
cuse in  Sicily,  of  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  B.  C. 

The  design  on  the  back  of  the  cover  is  a  study  from  Renaissance 


[xix] 


Part  I 

INTRODUCTION 


THE  ARTIST  S  WAY  OF 
WORKING 


Chapter  One 

THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INQUIRY 

THE  artist  is  a  man  who  has  thoughts 
to  express,  and  who  expresses  them  in 
a  language  altogether  different  from 
the  language  of  words.  The  fact 
that  these  ideas  are  often  inexpressible  in  words, 
and  the  fact  that  they  are  generally  such  as  are 
capable  of  giving  great  pleasure  to  persons  who 
understand  the  work  are  not,  as  it  seems,  essential 
to  the  nature  of  the  artist's  pursuit.  In  some 
cases  the  purely  artistic  thought  may  be  express- 
ible in  words,  or  partly  so.  On  certain  occasions 
and  to  certain  persons  the  work  of  art  may  pro- 
duce the  reverse  of  a  pleasant  impression  ;  it  may 
not  even  be  capable  of  giving  the  pleasure  which 
a  tragedy  gives  —  a  pleasure  which  is  already  some- 
what hard  to  explain.  The  sense  of  pain,  of 
discomfort,  which  is  produced  by  close  study  of 
certain  works  of  art,  may  exceed  the  pleasure 
received  from  their  artistic  treatment,  but  this 
in  no  way  changes  their  character  ;  they  are  still 

[3] 


THE   NATURE   OF  THE 


I N  Q  U I R  Y 


works  of  art,  because  the  person  who  has  produced 
them  has  had  thoughts  to  express,  which  (in  the 
Arts  of  Design)  he  seeks  to  convey  either  by 
pure  form,  or  by  expression  of  pure  form  on  the 
flat  surface,  and,  in  either,  by  beautiful  gradations 
of  light  and  shade,  —  that  is  to  say,  of  grayness 
leading  into  white  on  one  side  and  to  black 
on  the  other,  or  by  color  used  for  its  own  sake, 
or  by  two  or  more  of  these  means  employed 
simultaneously.  By  these  means  are  conveyed 
the  thoughts  of  the  artist  in  form  and  color,  the 
designer  as  we  call  him  ;  but  also  the  means  by 
which  a  musician  conveys  his  thoughts  are  far 
more  like  to  those  of  the  painter  or  carver  than 
they  are  to  those  of  the  writer  or  composer  in 
words.  Sounds  may  be  combined  for  artistic  effect 
in  the  simplest  tune  which  can  be  learned  easily 
and  whistled  on  the  streets,  or  in  the  elaborate 
orchestration  of  a  symphony ;  and  it  is  rather 
generally  understood  that  the  musical  thoughts  so 
expressed  would  be  wholly  inexpressible  in  words. 

But  what  is  a  "thought"  in  line  art?  It  is 
not  the  notion  that  such  and  such  form  or  color 
would  be  prettier,  that  such  and  such  a  sequence 
of  notes  would  sound  well  ;  it  is  the  unconscious 
creation  of  that  very  form,  or  color,  or  sequence 
of  notes,  —  the  taking  shape  in  the  mind  of  the 
group  of  parts  which  make  up  the  color-harmony, 
the  attractive  pattern,  the  interesting  pose,  the 
sonorous  and  startling  chord.     And  such  a  thought 

[4] 


* 


THOUGHT   AND   ITS  EXPRESSION 

is  more  apt  to  take  shape  and  consistence  when 
the  artist  has  begun  his  work  and  as  he  proceeds 
with  it  than  at  any  other  time.  Dimly  it  may 
have  been  perceived,  but  it  is  not  complete  until 
the  modelling-tool  is  in  hand  and  already  soiled 
with  the  clay  —  until  the  etching-needle  has  made 
its  first  few  cuts  through  the  hardened  ground. 

The  artist,  then,  is  not  a  man  who  has  thought 
at  leisure  and  has  gone  to  his  piece  of  material 
with  his  mind  made  up,  and  prepared  to  do  his 
piece  of  technical  work.  As  an  able  thinker 
rises  to  speak  "extemporaneously,"  as  we  say, 
that  is,  without  having  written  down  the  exact 
words  which  he  intends  to  use  on  that  occasion, 
and  speaks  fluently  and  to  the  point,  forgetting 
little  of  what  he  would  like  to  say,  and  bringing 
together  as  he  goes  on  much  that  he  was  not 
thinking  of  when  he  rose,  so  the  artist  in  form 
and  color  is  one  who  renders  thought  with  his 
fingers,  in  a  way  quite  inexplicable  to  one  who 
has  not  something  of  the  instinct,  together  with 
a  little  knowledge  of  the  practice  of  such  things. 
His  thoughts  are  generally  expressible  only  in 
the  language  of  the  art  which  he  is  practising  : 
and  as  this  language  is  known  to  the  outside 
world  only  by  study  of  the  work  of  art  itself,  it 
follows  that  the  purpose  of  the  artist,  his  mental 
processes,  cannot  be  explained  apart  from  the 
movement  of  his  intelligence  which  partly  precedes 
and  partly  accompanies  the  work  of  his  hands. 

[5] 


THE   NATURE    OF  THE  INQUIRY 


If  now,  having  a  work  of  art  before  us,  we 
desire  to  ascertain  what  the  purpose  was  which 
the  artist  had  in  mind  as  he  worked,  we  are  com- 
pelled to  reconstruct  the  mental  processes  which 
the  artist  went  through.  We  have  the  result ; 
and  if  we  wish  to  know  how  it  was  reached  we 
follow  the  reverse  ot  the  course  pursued  by  the 
artist  himself  —  we  remount  the  stream  in  hope 
of  rinding  its  source.  A  comparison  may  be 
drawn  from  the  well-known  and  often  cited  prac- 
tice of  those  grammarians  of  the  fifteenth  century 
who  gave  us  the  grammar  of  the  Latin  tongue. 
Such  a  grammarian  had  the  manuscripts  of  certain 
Latin  authorities,  and  he  had  his  experience  of 
his  own  vernacular,  and  of  several  dialects  other 
than  his  own,  and  beside  him  lay  such  unscientific 
and  too  summary  essays  on  the  construction  of 
language  as  might  then  exist,  relating  to  his  own 
vernacular  or  those  of  other  tongues  of  his  epoch. 
With  such  material  as  this,  and  with  no  other 
guide,  he  had  to  create  from  the  texts  of  Latin 
authors  the  non-existing  Latin  grammar.  If  he 
found  in  a  manuscript  the  word  factus,  he  had 
no  handbook,  like  one  of  those  which  are  always 
within  reach  to-day,  to  tell  him  that  this  was  a 
mode  of  one  and  the  same  verb  with  fio  and  fieri. 
The  odd-looking  word  reipublicac,  or  juribusjuran- 
dis  could  be  associated  with  the  nominative  res- 
publica  or  jusjurandum  only  after  much  reading, 
and  then  by  a  strong  mental  effort.     There  was 

[6] 


THE  SEARCH  FOR  THE  ARTIST'S  THOUGHT 


no  professor  at  hand  to  whom  he  could  refer  for 
advice  or  guidance.  The  world  has  no  record 
of  the  hesitations  and  the  blunderings  with  which 
the  early  study  of  grammar  must  have  been  thickly 
sown.  Nobody  has  occasion  now-a-days  to  con- 
sult the  early  grammars.  Here  and  there  a  col- 
lector loves  to  have  them  by  him  to  show  to 
admiring  fellow-collectors  ;  but  it  is  not  reported 
that  any  of  them  has  been  read  since  the  fifteenth 
century.  The  public-school  boys  and  the  scholars 
alike  take  it  for  granted  that  a  grammar  is  and 
has  always  been  on  the  top  shelf,  and  a  lexicon 
among  the  larger  books  below.  It  never  occurs 
to  the  modern  reader  of  a  Latin  text,  carefully 
edited,  punctuated,  and  divided  up  into  sentences 
and  paragraphs,  what  the  task  was  which  the 
fifteenth-century  student  was  compelled  to  under- 
take. Robert  Browning's  imagined  grammarian, 
he  whose  burial  is  recorded  in  a  well-known 
poem,  was  not  concerned  with  controverting  other 
scholars  as  to  the  "  enclitic  De."  He  found  the 
word,  the  little  word,  the  particle,  in  a  dozen 
manuscripts  or  early  printed  books;  and  his  busi- 
ness was  to  examine  the  context  as  to  its  meaning: 
and  force,  in  each  and  every  case  of  the  recurrence 
of  the  word  in  question.  Little  by  little  his 
theory  of  it  was  built  up,  and  one  paragraph  of  the 
new  Greek  grammar  had  then  been  composed. 

Very  much  in  this  way  must  he  proceed  who 
would  ascertain  the  artist's  meaning  in  a  given 

[7  ] 


THE   NATURE   OF  THE  INQUIRY 


work  of  art.  The  artist  is  not  often  capable  of 
explaining  in  words  what  he  has  been  intending 
to  express  in  his  artistic  work.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  has  been  found  hitherto  extremely  diffi- 
cult for  any  one  else  —  for  any  one  other  than 
an  actual  working  artist  —  to  translate  into  words 
the  significance  of  any  given  work  of  art.  And 
yet,  without  such  verbal  expression  of  the  artistic 
thought,  without  such  translation  into  the  lan- 
guage of  words  of  the  artist's  own  utterance  of 
his  thoughts,  no  criticism  of  a  work  of  art  is 
possible. 

The  criticism  of  a  work  of  art  must  consist 
first  in  an  explanation  of  the  apparent  and  the 
probable  artistic  intention  of  the  artist.  The 
inquiry  begins  either  evidently  and  as  expressed 
in  words,  or  tacitly  and  as  understood  between 
critic  and  reader,  with  a  questioning  of  this  sort 
—  What  may  we  assume  has  been  our  artist's 
intent?  In  order  to  meet  this  primary  question 
we  have  to  know  a  great  deal  about  the  possibil- 
ities. We  have  to  know  what  are  the  mechanical 
processes  used  by  artists  in  undertaking  such  tasks, 
and  what  the  experience  of  past  times  has  been  ; 
who  has  succeeded  greatly  and  who  has  succeeded 
only  in  part.  The  question  as  to  what  else  was 
or  may  be  possible  does  not  come  up  :  art  criti- 
cism has  always  to  do  with  the  completed  work 
of  art  brought  before  us  for  our  study.  And  this, 
too,   must   be  established,  that  the  purpose  of 

[8] 


WHY  WE  SEEK  FOR  THE  ARTIST'S  THOUGHT 


criticism  is  never  to  instruct  the  artist  :  the  artist 
cares  nothing  for  such  criticism ;  he  gets  a  hint 
or  two  from  a  brother  artist  and  may  approve  or 
resent  such  expression  of  opinion.  What  he  hears 
from  the  critic  can  never  be  of  use  to  him,  and 
it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  the  artist  that  the  criti- 
cism is  written.  Art  criticism  exists  for  the  sake 
of  the  outside  world. 

It  is  said  above  that  artists  are  not  often  capable 
of  explaining  their  intention  in  words.  When 
they  do,  provided  the  explanation  is  sincere  —  that 
is  to  say,  truthful  —  it  is  a  most  excellent  guide  to 
art  criticism,  and  he  who  would  study  art  should 
make  careful  note  of  every  deliberate  expression 
of  opinion  by  an  artist  concerning  his  own  work, 
or  the  work  of  others  of  his  own  occupation. 
But  the  main  thing  for  the  art  student  to  remem- 
ber is  that  any  such  expression  of  opinion  or  record 
of  experience  of  the  artist,  will  be  nearly  always 
exclusively  artistic  in  its  nature  ;  that  is  to  say,  it 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  ordinary  sentiment 
or  private  affection  ;  nothing  to  do  with  patriotism 
or  public  spirit ;  nothing  to  do  with  morality  or 
virtue  in  any  form  ;  nothing  to  do  with  religion. 
So  far  as  the  artist  cares  for  any  of  those  things, 
he  cares  not  as  an  artist,  but  as  a  citizen,  as  a 
family  man,  as  a  brother  of  his  kind.  And  so 
a  work  of  art  may  have  a  purpose  other  than  an 
artistic  one,  but  that  is  not  the  purpose  to  which 
the  artist  gave  much  thought  once  the  subject  was 

[9] 


THE  NATURE 


OF 


T  H  E 


INQUIRY 


decided,  nor  is  it  to  that  subject  that  art  criticism 
is  directed  —  good  citizen  or  careless  pococurante, 
he  may  in  either  case  have  produced  a  work  of 
art  which  it  would  take  all  our  energies  to  criti- 
cise aright.  Therefore,  it  is  not  criticism  of  a 
work  of  art  to  say,  as  many  moralists  have  said, 
that  the  artist  should  teach  this  or  that  —  should 
aim  at  this  or  that  effect  upon  the  world.  To 
say  that  he  should  be  a  teacher  of  truth  of  any 
kind,  a  moralist,  a  revealer,  or  an  expounder,  or 
a  preacher,  is  to  substitute  one  set  of  thoughts  for 
another,  and  will  never  result  in  criticism.  If 
you  have  occasion  to  form  your  own  opinion  of 
a  poem,  a  piece  of  music,  or  a  drawing,  it  will 
become  you  to  find  out  first  of  all  what  the  artist 
was  really  seeking  for,  because  by  much  the  greater 
part  of  your  study  must  be  the  looking  for  what 
is.  The  consideration  of  what  might  have  been, 
or  of  what  ought  to  be,  must  come  afterward  if  at 
all;  and  in  most  cases  it  will  not  be  needed  at  all. 
The  criticism  of  the  works  of  a  new  poet  must 
of  necessity  be  an  examination  of  what  the  work 
is.  Little  does  the  world  care  for  the  critic's 
opinion  as  to  whether  it  might  not  with  advan- 
tage have  been  something  else. 

The  student  of  Art  must,  therefore,  look  at  a 
work  of  art  many  times,  by  itself,  and  also  in 
comparison  with  other  works  of  art ;  he  must 
look  at  it  patiently,  not  hastily  deciding  as  to  the 
exact  thoughts  which  were  in  the  artist's  mind, 

[  10] 


WHY  WE  SEEK  FOR  THE  ARTISTS  THOUGHT 


but  distinguishing  little  by  little  the  essential  from 
the  accidental  and  temporary.  At  last  a  fellow- 
feeling  will  begin  to  arise  in  his,  the  student's, 
mind,  by  means  of  which  he  can  really  know 
that  at  last  he  has  ascertained  in  part  what  the 
artist  was  trying  to  express. 


[  »  ] 


Chapter  Two 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  LOWER 
CIVILIZATIONS 

THERE  is  no  fine  art1  work  that  is 
not  of  civilization.  Primitive  man 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  that  is, 
the  savage  who  has  as  yet  achieved 
very  little  in  his  search  for  the  greater  physical 
comfort  of  his  life  and  for  greater  security  of 
his  life  and  property,  —  primitive  man  in  that 
sense  has  no  fine  art  which  need  be  reckoned 
with.  The  savage  eats  and  sleeps,  hunts,  fights, 
eats  and  sleeps  again  ;  he  has  no  leisure,  only 
torpor ;  he  cannot  conceive  of  consecutive  work 
or  of  work  done  for  intellectual  pleasure.  But 
unless  work   is  consecutive   and   deliberate,  and 

1  Fine  Art :  art  which  has  for  its  object  mental  pleasure,  usually 
of  an  ennobling  sort:  (but  see  page  3).  The  work  which  makes  a 
utensil  pleasant  in  form  and  color  comes  under  this  definition,  and  so 
does  the  representation  of  an  object,  a  scene,  or  an  incident  when 
treated  in  such  a  way  as  to  reach  in  itself  an  attractive  and  interesting 
result.  In  this  work,  decorative  art  will  not  be  separated  from  other 
fine  art.  The  highest  mission  of  a  great  mural  painting  is  to  be  deco- 
rative in  the  highest  sense  :  on  the  other  hand,  the  shaping  of  a  sword- 
hilt  into  graceful  curves  and  the  adding  of  surface  ornament  to  it,  being 
good  decoration,  is  also  a  fine  art. 


THE  ART  OF  THE  PACIFIC  ISLANDS 


done  with  intellectual  pleasure,  no  fine  art  results 
from  it.  The  apparent  exceptions  to  this  rule  are 
not  so  certainly  exceptions  that  they  need  be  care- 
fully weighed.  Civilization  of  much  complexity 
may  exist  along  with  tyrannical  government,  with 
cannibalism,  with  great  social  disorder.  Thus, 
in  the  case  of  the  Pacific  Islands ;  to  read  the 
accounts  of  the  earliest  European  visitants  to  these 
islands,  one  would  suppose  that  those  were  de- 
graded savages  who  fought  with  Cook  and  La 
Perouse  ;  but  if  we  read  Mariner's  record,  as 
recorded  by  John  Martin  in  1818,  his  who  lived 
among  the  people  of  the  Tonga  Islands  until  he 
grew  to  know  them,  we  find  that  the  civiliza- 
tion which  Mariner  knew  in  the  first  decade  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  which  Melville  found  in 
1846,  and  which  La  Farge  describes  as  he  saw  it 
in  1892,  existed  already  when  the  overbearing  and 
contemptuous  European  refused  to  believe  that 
those  who  opposed  him  in  defence  of  their  own 
homes  could  be  men  of  any  civilization  at  all. 
The  very  interesting  art  of  the  Pacific  Islands 
contains  an  indefinite  number  of  puzzles,  and  the 
attempt  to  apply  scientific  methods  to  its  investi- 
gation has  not  been,  hitherto,  a  brilliant  success. 
Its  antiquity  is  unknown,  the  origin  of  its  symbols 
and  its  technical  methods  can  only  be  guessed  ; 
the  practised  student  of  decorative  art 1  has  noth- 

1  Decorative  Art :  fine  art  applied  to  the  making  beautiful  or  interest- 
ing that  which  is  made  for  utilitarian  purposes.     Architecture  may  be 

[  IJ  ] 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  LOWER  CIVILIZATIONS 


ing  for  it  but  to  sit  down  before  the  works  of  art 
themselves  and  try  to  judge  of  their  significance. 

Thus,  in  Fig.  i ,  there 
is  given  the  blade  of 
a  paddle.  It  appears 
that  a  series  of  incised 
lozenges  are  filled  each 
by  a  ridge,  leaving  two 
triangles  fitted  closely 
together,  and  that  a 
number  of  these  loz- 
enges occupy  a  parallel- 
ogram ;  that  a  series  of 
crescent-shaped  units 
occupy  also  a  parallel- 
ogram, and  that  panels 
filled  in  these  two  ways 
alternate  with  one  an- 
other ;  while  a  double 
row  of  small  incised 
triangles  fills  the  blank 
surfaces  between  the 
ornamental  panels  ; 
that  a  modification  of 
these  patterns  is  used  for  the  general  border, 
which,  with  singular  judgment  and  good  taste 
in  its  design,  encloses  the  whole.     All  these  di- 


Fig.  i  .     Blade  of  Paddle,  Pacific 
Islands 


considered  the  chief  of  the  decorative  arts,  or,  it  may  be  considered  as  a 
combination  of  decorative  art  applied  to  certain  parts  with  constructional 
science  and  utilitarian  devices  which  control  the  whole  structure. 

[  H] 


THE  ART  OF  THE 


PACIFIC  ISLANDS 


visions  and  subdivisions  occupy,  with  the  narrow 
bands  between  them,  a  large  surface  of  dark 
red  wood  ;  they  are  produced  by  the  process  of 
digging  little  pits  in  the  wood,  each  depression 
having  distinctly  sloping  sides  meeting  at  the 
bottom  of  the  little  pit.  The  general  opinion  is 
that  such  a  simple  carving  was  done  with  a  shark- 
tooth,  because  the  evidence  of  the  use  of  imple- 
ments of  hard  stone,  splinters  of  flint,  and  splinters 
of  agate,  is  not  often  traceable  in  the  Pacific 
Islands.  It  appears  also  that  the  sharp-pointed 
tooth  of  certain  voracious  fishes  was  quite  hard 
and  sharp  enough  to  do  the  cutting,  and  that  this 
was  exactly  the  tool  most  desirable  for  the  rub- 
bing smooth  of  the  cut  surfaces.  Fig.  2  gives  the 
crown  or  head  of  the  same  paddle  that  is  shown 
in  Fig.  1,  as  well  as  another  of  similar  design. 
The  top  of  each  is  cut  square  and  itself  adorned 
with  a  sunken  pattern  of  considerable  complexity ; 
and  it  is  remarkable  with  what  accurate  skill  the 
plane  of  this  top,  taken  in  a  general  sense,  is  made 
normal  to  the  lines  of  the  long,  round  handle.  A 
machine  could  hardly  have  cut  it  more  squarely 
off.  The  little  projections  around  this  flat  top, 
forming  the  crown,  are  detached  from  the  mass 
by  cuts  averaging  half  an  inch  in  depth,  and  these 
projections  are  separated  from  one  another  by  a 
space  smaller  than  this  depth.  The  technical  skill 
shown  is  considerable ;  and  the  noticeable  thing 
about  the  whole  is  the  leisure  in  which  the  work 

[15] 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  LOWER  CIVILIZATIONS 


has  been  undertaken,  the  evident  willingness  to 
spend  time  upon  it  indefinitely,  the  calm  satisfac- 
tion of  the  workman  who  could  begin  a  task 
which,  as  he  must  have  known  from  tradition  and 

the  example  of  others 
near  him,  would  oc- 
cupy all  the  quiet 
hours  of  many  months 
or  years. 

Now  the  peculiar 
significance  of  these 
two  pieces  of  work 
when  compared  one 
with  another  is  in  this 
—  that  the  units  of 
design  of  the  crown 
are  all  of  them  studies 
of  the  human  face. 

It  is  unmistakable, 
it  is  as  certain  as  any- 
thing can  be,  that  the 
front  of  the  human 
head  formed  the 
Not  that  it  appears  cer- 
tain that  the  artist  whose  work  we  are  con- 
sidering studied  the  human  head  with  any  care. 
He  may  well  have  copied  a  copy  which  was 
itself  the  copy  of  a  copy,  and  that  through  many 
steps  of  the  development  of  the  design  ;  but  it  is 
indisputably  true  that  the  human  head  was  the 

[  16] 


Fig.  2. 


Heads  of  two  Paddles, 
Pacific  Islands 


a  Head  of  Paddle  shown  in  Fig.  I 
b   Head  of  a  much  shorter  Paddle 


motive  of  this  design 


THE  ART  OF  THE 


PACIFIC 


ISLANDS 


origin  of  the  design  —  taken  up  by  what  innovat- 
ing genius  in  the  remote  past  no  one  can  even 
surmise.  Contrasted  with  this  is  the  pattern  of 
the  blade  (see  Fig.  i),  in  which  it  is  as  clear  that 
no  imitation  or  representation  of  any  existing  ob- 
ject was  in  the  designer's  mind.  What  he  did 
was  to  divide  up  the  surface  with  straight  lines, 
and  he  amused  himself  by  so  doing  and  enjoyed 
the  result.  Here  again  he  was  not  the  first  maker 
of  this  pattern,  and  in  the  remote  past  he  who 
made  the  pattern  which  after  many  removes  was 
at  last  embodied  in  this  particular  piece  of  work 
may  first  have  drawn  his  triangles  with  a  crum- 
bling shell,  making  white  marks  on  a  smooth 
surface  of  water-worn,  dark-colored  rock  ;  thus 
trying  to  make  more  permanent  and  more  delicate 
what  he  had  scrawled  aforetime  on  the  beach 
at  low  tide.  The  man  who  enjoyed  drawing  such 
patterns  on  the  rock,  for  the  rising  tide  to  wash 
off  again,  would  also  feel  a  certain  vexation  that 
the  pretty  thing  he  drew  yesterday  was  not  in 
existence  to-day,  that  he  might  show  it  to  some 
one  else.  He  would  try  then  whether  a  harder 
piece  of  shell  would  cut  a  groove,  and  whether 
a  softer  surface  would  not  admit  of  grooves  being 
cut.  His  crossing  lines  would  give  him  the 
pattern  of  triangles,  and  it  would  be  a  delightful 
surprise  when  somebody  suggested  that  each  tri- 
angle could  be  subdivided  by  three  lines  meeting 
in  the  middle.     For  his  more  enterprising  suc- 

VOL.  1  —  2  [    17  ] 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  LOWER  CIVILIZATIONS 


cessor  it  was  a  not  unnatural  thing  to  sketch  that 
skeleton  drawing,  that  diagram,  upon  the  blade 
of  a  paddle,  and  to  make  from  that  drawing  a 
carved  pattern  somewhat  like  that  which  is  repre- 
sented in  Fig.  i.  It  took  a  vast  number  of  years 
and  a  long  succession  of  artists  before  the  pattern 
grew  to  be  as  fixed  and  accurate,  and  also  as 
unchangeable,  as  the  one  before  us,  and  before 
the  work  could  be  as  highly  finished.  Minute- 
ness, exactness,  and  precise  finish  came  together 
with  formalism,  inseparable  in  this  as  they  have 
been  ever  since  in  the  history  of  human  art. 
Such  are  early  manifestations  of  the  art  of  sculp- 
ture ;  the  one  shown  in  Fig.  2  being  probably 
based  upon  a  preliminary  practice  of  a  kind  of 
drawing  other  than  the  scribing  on  the  wood. 

We  have  now  to  consider  a  multiplied  or  repro- 
duced art,  also  based  upon  a  piece  of  drawing. 
Fig.  3  is  a  pattern  printed  on  the  smooth,  extended 
or  pulled-out,  inner  bark  of  a  tree,  —  a  material 
known  in  the  Sandwich  Islands  as  tapa.  This 
work  is  done,  usually,  by  women,  who  print  off 
impressions  from  a  wooden  block  ;  but  it  appears 
that  the  practice  of  different  communities  differs 
widely  in  this,  some  of  them  making  the  pattern 
up  from  many  separate  impressions  of  a  block  as 
square  and  plain  as  a  brick,  while  with  others  the 
block  is  itself  carved,  something  as  in  Europe 
a  wood  engraving  is  made,  so  that  each  impres- 
sion of  the   block   gives  a   larger  piece  of  the 

[18] 


THE  ART  OF  THE  PACIFIC  ISLANDS 


diaper  1  pattern,  including  indeed  several  of  the 
units  of  design. 


Fig.  3.     Cloth  made  of  extended  bark,  Pacific  Islands  :  pattern 
in  dark  brown  printed  from  wood  blocks 


(A.  Sturgis  Collection) 


It  is  noticeable  that  the  entirely  non-representa- 
tive succession  of  straight  and  curved  lines  in  flat 


1  Diaper  :  a  pattern  in  which  the  unit  of  design  constantly  repeats 
itself,  or  in  which  two  or  three  different  units  of  design  succeed  one  an- 

[  19] 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  LOWER  CIVILIZATIONS 


patterns  takes  longer  to  develop,  and  meets  the 
conditions  of  elaborate  design  more  completely 
than  work  done  in  solid  form.  Carving  or 
modelling  is  obviously  a  more  simple  and  more 
primitive  way  of  representing  an  object  than  draw- 
ing or  daubing  on  the  flat.  Thus  the  "idols,"  or 
"fetishes,"  of  many  low  civilizations,  the  amulets 
and  symbols,  tikis  and  totem-figures  have  but  a  far- 
away and  grotesque  representation  of  humanity,  in 
which  a  superstitious  terror  has  been  the  determin- 
ing cause  of  the  work,  and  has  affected  the  design 
to  an  extent  almost  impossible  to  trace  or  define. 
In  like  manner  the  hideous  deformity  of  a  New 
Zealand  carved  head  wrought  upon  the  framed 
posts  of  a  chief's  house  does  not  express  the  artistic 
feeling  of  the  Maori  people  ;  it  expresses  threaten- 
ing and  defiance,  —  just  as  do  the  steel  vizors  of 
the  most  artistic  period  of  Japan.  Now  this  very 
readiness  to  express  other  ideas  than  those  of 
decoration  points  to  the  comparative  ease  with 
which  free  sculpture  is  handled  by  untrained  men. 
It  is  clear  that  it  would  be  a  much  more  serious 
effort  to  produce  on  the  flat  surface  a  drawing 
in  line  or  a  daubing  with  pigment  of  any  kind 
which  should  resemble  humanity  as  nearly  as  such 
a  carved  log  represents  it.  For  a  low  civilization, 
that  would  be  a  prodigious  achievement,  nor  are  we 

other  in  the  repetition,  but  always  touching  one  another,  or  set  in  close 
juxtaposition.  The  term  is  connected  with  jasper.  A  design  made  of 
separate  spots  is  more  properly  called  a  sowing,  French  seme. 

[  20] 


ARTISTIC 


AND  NON-ARTISTIC  IDEAS 


likely  to  find  even  among  the  curiously  traditional 
and  fixed  code  of  laws  of  Polynesian  society  any 
inspiration  to  such  an  art  as  that.  What  seems  an 
exception  exists  in  North  America  :  there  has  been 
noted  a  tendency  among  the  red  Indians  of  North 
America  to  produce  absolutely  flat  paintings,  some- 
times on  the  smooth  rock,  sometimes  on  the  inner 
side  of  a  buffalo-hide.  This  often  took  the  form 
of  picture-writing  of  a  very  simple  sort,  but  the 
question  as  to  how  early  in  the  history  of  the 
North  American  aborigines  this  picture-writing 
was  instituted  is  as  yet  unanswered.  The  tribes 
of  what  is  now  the  United  States  never  brought 
their  pictographs  up  to  the  lowest  artistic  level 
in  any  region  east  of  the  great  plains.  Expressive 
of  some  ideas  they  were,  like  hieroglyphics  in  the 
proper  sense,  but  the  ideas  were  not  artistic.  The 
decoration  dear  to  the  North  American  savage  of 
the  forest  region  was  rather  that  of  strings  of  beads 
and  tastefully  arranged  feathers  than  that  which 
called  for  such  abstract  work  as  drawing  :  but  the 
peoples  of  the  country  where  life  could  not  be 
supported  by  hunting  were,  when  the  white  man 
came,  somewhat  farther  advanced  toward  an  epoch 
of  decorative  art. 

Unfortunately,  the  drawings  which  among  early 
peoples  probably  existed  as  guides  and  studies,  those 
which  were  preserved  as  patterns  for  the  cutter  of 
blocks  in  such  printing  as  is  described  above,  or 
even  the  scrawls  made  to  commemorate  the  aspect 

[21  ] 


THE   WORK  OF  THE  LOWER  CIVILIZATIONS 


of  a  natural  object,  have  all  perished.  Indeed,  it 
is  the  rarest  thing  to  find  among  primitive  work 
any  drawings  or  paintings,  at  all  more  developed 
than  the  bands  or  spots  or  zigzags  of  color  which 
are  scrawled  upon  the  face  or  a  limb  of  a  rude 
statue.  The  decoration  of  sculpture  by  means  of 
color  is  as  old  as  sculpture  itself,  and  the  inser- 
tion of  a  piece  of  shell  for  an  eye  seems  to  bring 
with  it  the  want  of  a  black  painted  bar  above,  for 
the  eyebrow  ;  but  drawing  in  the  sense  of  a  stain- 
ing of  a  flat  surface  with  different  colors,  or 
marking  it  with  positive  lines  with  a  view  to 
representing  a  natural  object  or  of  embodying  the 
dream  of  an  ornamental  pattern  (see  Chapter  VII), 
is  more  rare  among  peoples  of  early  civilization, 
than  any  other  branch  of  fine  art.  See,  however, 
what  is  said  (Chapter  XII)  in  connection  with 
weaving  of  flat  patterns  in  coarse,  stout  materials  ; 
where  the  mechanical  process  employed  is  so 
obvious  and  simple,  and  the  patterns  produced  by 
it  are  so  purely  decoration  of  a  flat  surface,  that  it 
differs  from  ordinary  drawing  only  in  the  methods 
employed.  In  fact,  the  very  existence  of  these 
woven  fabrics  and  the  evident  enjoyment  taken 
by  the  weaver  in  the  patterns  produced  by  the 
weaving  suggest  the  existence,  contemporaneously 
with  this  work,  of  drawing  of  the  more  familiar 
sort,  scribing  with  the  hard  point  and  daubing 
with  the  brush,  or  chewed  reed  or  bunch  of  fibres 
of  some  kind,  and  ground  and  wetted  pigment.  In 

[«] 


PRIMITIVE  LOVE  OF  BRIGHT  COLORS 


these  ways  variety  of  color  was  hardly  obtainable, 
because  of  the  very  small  number  of  available  pig- 
ments. In  this  fact  is  seen  one  reason  for  the 
scarcity  of  such  drawings  ;  for  the  primitive  man 
is,  at  least  as  he  begins  to  emerge  from  his  lower 
state  and  begins  seriously  to  decorate,  a  color- 
loving  animal.  That  he  may  gratify  his  natural 
love  for  bright  colors,  four  or  five  pigments  are 
needed,  and  there  are  needed  also  appliances  by 
which  each  of  these  or  any  mixture  of  them  can 
be  applied.  It  is  not  till  a  later  time  that  these 
colors  come  to  be  carried  through  shades  and 
gradations  from  darker  to  lighter,  from  richer  to 
paler,  or  from  one  color  into  another  color,  as 
when  we  see,  in  the  solar  spectrum  or  in  painting, 
blue  pass  into  yellow  through  intermediate  shades 
of  green.  That  even  flat  painting  was  not  feasible 
among  any  of  the  early  races  whose  art  has  been 
studied  seems  to  be  evidenced  from  the  fact  that 
their  building  is  so  seldom  helped  out  by  color; 
for  every  tribe  whose  work  we  know  as  somewhat 
more  advanced,  when  it  has  built,  has  also  painted 
its  buildings,  and  its  carving  has  received  the  richest 
effects  ;  see  the  discussion  of  this  subject  in  Chap- 
ters XX  and  XXV  and  also  XXIV  where  painted 
and  otherwise  colored  sculpture  is  considered. 

Buildings  of  the  simpler  races  are  also  pecu- 
liarly susceptible  of  color  decoration,  because  they 
have  little  or  no  constructional  character.  A  hut 
formed  almost  wholly  of  round  logs  tied  together, 

[23] 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  LOWER  CIVILIZATIONS 


much  as  the  simpler  builders'  scaffolding  of  our 
village  and  country  work  is  made,  hardly  reaches 
the  dignity  of  architecture,  not  because  of  its  sim- 
plicity, but  because  of  the  unwieldiness  of  the  ma- 
terials. If  your  way  of  building  is  to  set  up  a 
dozen  poles  vertically,  four  heavy  ones  at  the  four 
corners  and  the  other  eight  on  the  lines  of  the 
sides  between  those  corners,  and  if  your  only 
means  of  filling  in  between  them  is  to  tie  to  the 
uprights  other  poles  laid  horizontally,  and  then  to 
tie  on  a  great  number  of  sheaves  of  leaves,  set  ver- 
tically again,  outside  of  the  horizontals,  in  order 
to  shed  water,  while  the  roof  is  covered  with  a 
thatch  of  cocoanut  boughs,  or,  in  the  North,  of 
marsh  grass  or  other  strong  fibrous  and  easily 
matted  material,  you  will  find  that  architectural 
effect  eludes  you  and  is  obtainable  only  by  that 
which  men  of  early  civilizations  seem  not  to  think 
of,  —  by  good  proportion  of  roof,  overhang  of 
eaves,  the  width  and  height  of  the  whole.  If  the 
spirit  moves  you  to  go  further  you  must  strip  some 
of  your  round  logs  of  their  bark  and  carve  in  the 
solid  wood,  and  then  for  the  first  time  the  oppor- 
tunity to  use  color  is  afforded  you.  But  in  the 
case  of  such  architectural  carving  as  this  —  and 
there  is  plenty  of  it  in  New  Zealand  —  the  use  of 
color  seems  to  have  been  extremely  limited  in  all 
early  times,  and  the  inference  is  that  only  the 
black  obtained  from  soot  and  the  red  obtained 
from  the  pounding  of  certain  clays  were  within 

[34] 


PRIMITIVE  ART  SELDOM   EASY  TO  TRACE 


the  reach  of  the  native  designer.  These  he  would 
use,  enhancing  the  effects  of  his  incisions  by  the 
darker  color,  heightening  the  effect  of  his  surface 
by  the  lighter  color,  using  them  both  with  some 
consideration  as  to  the  best  obtainable  effect,  but 
never  reaching  anything  like  Coloring,  that  is  to 
say,  the  pleasing  effects  of  colors  combined  to- 
gether so  as  to  produce  a  pattern  or  a  design. 

It  is  obvious  that  modern  study  of  primitive 
design  is  accompanied  by  many  difficulties.  The 
earliest  Egyptian  work  discovered  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  was  not  of  really  primitive  times 
but  was  contemporaneous  with  a  somewhat  higher 
civilization.  In  the  summer  of  1901  news  came 
of  finds  which  must  be  dated  fifteen  hundred  years 
earlier  than  those  above  alluded  to,  and  still  the 
epoch  of  the  earliest  decorative  designing  had  not 
been  reached.  In  such  exceptional  regions  as  the 
valley  of  the  Nile  and  the  plain  of  the  Euphrates, 
civilization  is  immeasurably  earlier  than  in  more 
arid,  less  fertile  and  inviting  regions  of  the  earth. 
The  development  of  decorative  art  in  Egypt  may 
prove  to  be  ten  thousand  years  old  ;  and  a  civili- 
zation as  early  may  well  be  found  to  have  existed 
in  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia.  Obviously,  only 
detached  and  widely  separated  epochs  of  such  art 
will  ever  become  known  to  us.  Then,  as  for 
those  peoples  which  have  remained  in  a  less  highly 
organized  state,  the  coming  of  Western  civiliza- 
tion with  its  abuses  tends  to  destroy  immediately 

[25] 


THE   WORK  OF  THE  LOWER  CIVILIZATIONS 


the  traditional  art,  and  even  to  do  away  with  the 
traces  of  that  art ;  for  the  earliest  explorers  and 
settlers,  tradesmen  or  missionaries,  are  instinctively 


b  c  d 


Fig.  4.     Four  War  Clubs,  Pacific  Islands 

a  is  flat  and  the  edges  rather  sharp,  b  is  circular  in  section,  like  a  base- 
ball club,  c  and  d,  see  text ;  all  of  heavy  red  wood. 
(A.  Sturgis  Collection) 

indifferent  to  or  hostile  to  the  habits  and  previous 
lives  of  the  native  inhabitants.  Hence  there  may 
at  any  time  arise  a  radical  disagreement  between 
those  writers  who  hold  that  all  early  designing  is 

[26] 


EXPRESSION 


AND 


DECORATIVE 


PURPOSE 


based  upon  attempted  imitation  of  natural  objects, 
and  those  who  hold  rather  to  the  belief  in  an 
abundant  use  of  purely  decorative  patterns  —  pat- 
terns which  the  unoccupied  and  untaught  man 
finds  extremely  entertaining  in  themselves.  It 
may  be  held  that  the  advocates  of  the  former  doc- 
trine are  the  scientific  men  who  enjoy  the  tracing 
out  of  the  slow  development,  or  degeneracy,  of  a 
pattern  from  a  more  direct  imitation  to  a  tradi- 
tional pattern  in  which  imitation  is  hardly  discov- 
erable. An  interesting  instance  is  in  the  sceptre 
or  ceremonial  staff  carried  by  the  Maori  chiefs  in 
New  Zealand.  This  is  finished  at  one  end  by  a 
blade-like  projecting  member,  sharp  at  the  edges 
and  point,  and  generally  held  to  represent  the 
tongue  protruded  in  defiance,  a  theory  which  is 
made  good  by  the  two  eyes  and  the  extremely 
grotesque  carving  which  stands  for  the  lips  and 
the  whole  face.  So  far  there  is  representation  of 
a  natural  object,  but  carried  beyond  the  limits 
of  mere  copying  into  a  recognized  and  tradition- 
ally accepted  form  for  the  tip  of  the  staff ;  but 
there  is  scroll  carving  upon  it  which  cannot  be 
imagined  as  originating  in  a  study  of  the  papilla- 
of  the  actual  tongue.  No  ;  as  to  these  scrolls,  as 
with  the  pattern  on  the  paddle,  Fig.  i,  the  natural 
man's  love  of  ornament  has  been  the  guiding  prin- 
ciple. There  is  many  a  war  club  in  which  the 
idea  of  offence  and  defiance  is  carried  farther  be- 
cause made  still  more  abstract.     The  marking  of 

[>7] 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  LOWER  CIVILIZATIONS 


the  tongue  as  distinct  from  the  lips  and  head 
disappears  in  such  a  staff,  as  it  is  now  a  deadly 
weapon  and  not  a  symbolical  wand  (see  Fig.  4 
c  and  d\  ;  the  eyes  and  the  suggestion  of  the 
lips  are  still  definitely  expressed  in  low  relief,  or 
in  the  inlay  of  shells. 

Painting  and  drawing  follow  these  same  general 
rules  ;  but  with  the  severe  restrictions  noted  above, 
the  restrictions  involved  in  the  difficulty  found 
by  all  beginners  in  representing  on  a  flat  surface 
what  is  really  a  solid,  and  in  making  anything 
interesting  with  only  one  color  or  two  colors. 
Therefore,  the  painted  patterns  are  naturally  more 
formal  and  severe  than  the  carved  ones ;  and 
indeed  the  satisfaction  which  imperfectly  de- 
veloped races  feel  in  the  simple  flat  patterns  is 
so  marked  that  in  Egypt  as  late  as  the  Sixth 
Dynasty,  perhaps  three  thousand  years  b.  c,  color 
decoration  is  almost  limited  to  zigzags  and  diag- 
onal scrolls. 

These  simple  designs  as  far  as  they  are  recti- 
linear may  be  thought  to  be  largely  the  result  of 
the  woven  patterns  which  are  often  among  the 
most  brilliant  works  of  primitive  races.  Fig.  5 
shows  grass-woven  belts  of  the  Pacific  Islands ; 
of  which  belts  the  fabric  is  solid,  the  threads 
drawn  tight,  the  surface  smooth  ;  so  that  it  is 
evident  that  the  work  received  careful  attention. 
Fig.  6  shows  two  pieces  of  printed  bark  similar 
to  that  given  in  Fig.  3  ;  but  in  this  instance  the 

[28] 


SIMPLE  DESIGN  SUGGESTED  BY  WEAVING 


Fig.  5.     Grass-woven  Belts,  Pacific  Islands  :  the  color  is  that  of 
the  undyed  dry  fibre  combined  with  red  and  black 

(A.  Sturgis  Collection) 

imitation  of  a  woven  pattern  is  obvious.  The 
blocks  have  been  cut  and  the  printing  done  ex- 

[  29  ] 


THE   WORK  OF  THE  LOWER  CIVILIZATIONS 


pressly  to  imitate  a  piece  of  textile  material.  It 
is  quite   evident   how   slight  a   difference  exists 


Fig.  6.     Cloth  of  printed  bark  shown  on  a  smaller  scale 
than  Fig.  3 


b  is  a  somewhat  finer  Fabric 
(A.  Sturgis  Collection) 

between  a  similar  pattern  produced  by  the  direct 
work  of  the  brush. 


[30] 


Part  II 

THE  FIVE  MECHANICAL  PROCESSES 


Book  II 


Chapter  Three 
CARVING 

A SIMPLE  community,  one  where  popu- 
lation is  thin,  towns  small,  and  wealth 
rare,  will  not  have  workmen  in  special 
.  lines.  There  will  be  no  skilled  me- 
chanics ;  but  in  exchange,  many  of  the  individuals 
who  compose  it  will  be  clever  with  their  hands, 
and  may  even  have  preferences  as  to  the  work  they 
will  undertake.  One  man  is  rather  inclined  to 
moulding  objects  in  tenacious  earth,  and  may  have 
learned  how  to  harden  them  by  heat ;  while  an- 
other prefers  the  sharp  tool  and  the  hard  material. 
Even  so  one  woman  prefers  the  making  of  what 
may  be  called  cloth,  by  expanding  the  inner  bark 
of  a  tree,  while  another  likes  the  weaving  of  bas- 
kets much  better.  Now,  when  the  dawn  of  art 
rises  upon  such  a  community,  the  decorative  pat- 
tern, which  may  also  retain  a  semblance  of  visible 
living  creatures  which  have  interested  the  artist,  will 
be  sometimes  the  result  of  printing  upon  the  bark 
cloth,  sometimes  of  weaving  dyed  rushes  or  twisted 
yarns,  sometimes  of  working  in  clay  with  thumbs 
and  fingers  and  primitive  tools  of  stick,  and  some- 

VOL.   ,-3  [33] 


C  A  R  V  I  N  G 


times  of  cutting  wood  or  bone  or  shell  or  even 
stone  into  shapes  deliberately  chosen,  or  at  least 
found  pleasing  as  they  take  shape.  This  last-de- 
scribed process,  which  we  call  carving,1  draws  on 
very  soon  to  work  having  some  artistic  quality. 
It  is  the  most  commonly  artistic  of  all  the  simple 
industries.  It  is  shown  in  Chapter  II  how  easily 
the  people  of  low  civilization  have  used  it  and 
with  how  frequent  an  artistic  result.  As  civiliza- 
tion grows,  complexity  is  one  of  the  first  results 
of  larger  intelligence.  Boxes  of  hard  red  wood 
about  ten  inches  long  are  carved  among  the 
Maoris  of  New  Zealand,  the  covers  rather  nicely 
fitted,  the  general  shape  rather  symmetrical  and 
deliberately  neat ;  and  it  must  be  noted  that,  as  in 
the  definition  above,  all  the  surface  pattern  is  pro- 
duced by  cutting  away  the  hard  substance  of  the 
wood  in  little  chips,  exactly  as  a  boy  carves  his 
name  on  a  bench,  but  with  this  peculiarity:  that 
the  New  Zealander  has  cut  into  the  surface  in 
order  to  leave  a  raised  pattern,  while  the  letter- 
carving  boy  has  chosen  to  produce  an  incised  pat- 
tern.    Now,  the  Japanese  ivory  boxes  shown  in 


1  Carving  .-  the  shaping  of  any  hard  substance  by  means  of  sharp- 
edged  and  sharp-pointed  tools,  especially  when  intended  for  decorative 
effect.  Bv  extension,  work  done  in  large  measure  by  the  drill  is  in- 
cluded. Carving  differs  from  sculpture  only  in  that  it  is  of  necessity  done 
with  a  sharp  tool  in  hard  material,  except  where  this  hardness  is  so  great 
that  friction  and  slow  attrition  are  needed  ;  whereas  sculpture,  though 
origiaally  having  the  same  meaning,  has  grown  to  include  the  shaping  of 
plastic  material,  such  as  modelling  in  clay. 

[34  ] 


DESIGN    SUGGESTED   BY   NATURAL  FORM 


Fig.  7  are  the  direct  descendants  of  the  New 
Zealand  pieces,  in  so  far  as  the  relief  carving  on 


Fig.  7.     Ivory  box,  total  height  5  inches 


the  body  is  concerned.     The  curious,  flower-like 
scrolls  on  the  smaller  box  are  just  such  an  improve- 
ment upon  the  Maori  curlicues 
as  would  be  developed  by  an 
observing  race  after  three  thou- 
sand years  of  looking  at  feath- 
ers and  clouds.     The  effect  of 
ocean  waves  on  the  larger  box 
is  another  bit  of  nature-study, 
and  the  cloud-forms  belong  to 
a  still  more  advanced  epoch  of 
such  observation.     The  rather 
bulky  handles  of  this  piece  are 
made  to   repeat  the  swirls  and  spirals  of  those 
cloud-studies,  —  a  subtile  bit  of  feeling  for  deco- 

[35  ] 


Fig.  7  bis.     Ivory  box, 
total  height  4  inches 


CARVING 


rative  art  of  a  high  quality.  As  for  the  two 
human  figures  and  the  dragon,  they  will  need 
discussion   in   Chapter  XXIV,   as  being  expres- 

sional  sculpture,  and  the  mon- 
ster which  forms  a  knop  to 
the  smaller  box  is  beyond  anal- 
ysis in  this  connection. 

Carving  is  of  several  kinds, 
in  fact  it  is  of  three  general 
kinds ;  and  the  reader  may 
compare  a  similar  classification 
of  modelled  work  (see  Chapter 
IV).  We  have  carving  in  the 
round,  as  it  is  called,  that  is 
to  say,  the  production  of  en- 
tirely solid  objects,  as  clusters 
of  flowers  or  leaves,  and  the 
many  carved  finials  and  bosses 
of  decorative  art,  like  the 
knops  of  the  two  ivory  boxes, 
busts,  statues,  and  groups,  rep- 
resentations of  beasts  and  birds, 
and  all  such  pieces  of  design 
as  are  free  on  all  sides.  See 
Fig.  8,  a  piece  of  Dieppe  ivory.  Secondly,  we 
have  carving;  in  relief,1  and  what  is  called  "  carved 


Fig.  8.    Sculpture  in  the 
Round  :  ivory  statuette, 
eighteenth  century 


1  Relief :  The  character  of  being  in  projection  from  a  background 
which  may  not  be  perfectly  flat  and  uniform,  but  has  sufficient  continuity 
of  surface  to  be  on  the  whole  flat  and  with  the  figures  projecting  from  it. 
The  terms  bas-relief  [basso-rilievo]  or  low  relief,  mezzo  rilievo,  and  alto 

[36] 


DIFFERENT    KINDS    OF  RELIEF 


work  "  is  generally  of  this  character,  as  in  Fig. 
9,  where  the  bust  has  a  relief  of  a  quarter  of  an 


Fig.  9.     Tinted  Ivory  Relief,  4  inches  high  :  contemporary 
portrait  of  Henry  IV  of  France 

inch  in  parts,  while  the  emblematic  jieur  de  lis 
in   the  corners   are  very  slightly  raised  and  the 

rilievo,  are  not  capable  of  exact  distinction.  Thus  some  high  reliefs  have 
parts  entirely  detached  from  the  background,  as  the  heads  and  arms  of 
figures  in  the  Parthenon  metopes  and  in  the  bronze  work  of  Ghiberti. 

[  37  ] 


CARVING 


shield  of  arms  is  merely  scratched  or  engraved 
(see  Chapter  XIX).     Thirdly,  we  have  the  rever- 


Fig.  9  bis.     Tinted  Ivory  Relief,  4  inches  high  :  contemporary 
portrait  of  Marie  de  Medicis,  Queen  of  Henry  IV  of  France 

sal  of  relief,  or  intaglio,1  as  in  the  ordinary  cutting 
of  a  name,  or  as  in  the  elaborate  inscription  in 


1  Intaglio:  incision,  inscription.  This  Italian  term  is  used  in  the 
absence  of  an  English  one  to  signifv  sculpture  which  is  hollow  instead  of 

[38] 


RELIEF   AND  INTAGLIO 


marble  shown  in  Fig.  i  o,  where  the  use  of  relief 
sculpture  in  ornament  is  contrasted  with  this 
incised  lettering.  It  will  be  best  to  deal  in  this 
place  with  these  different  kinds  of  form,  because 


Fig.  io.     Tomb  of  Sassetti  :  Church  of  SS.  Trinita,  Florence 

(Original  in  the  building) 

it  is  as  carved  images  in  granite  or  marble,  rather 
than  modelled  figures  in  clay  and  plaster  or  in 
bronze,  that  sculpture  presents  itself  to  us. 

There  are  some  sculptures  which  show  a  com- 
bination of  two  or  more  of   these  three  forms. 

convex,  recessed  instead  of  projecting.  An  impression  in  soft  material  of 
an  intaglio  would  be  relief. 

[39] 


CARVING 


Thus,  in  the  definition  of  relief  it  is  stated  that 
high  relief  has  sometimes  parts  worked  in  the 
round.     This  occurs  in  the  metopes  of  the  Par- 


Fig.  I  I.     Metope  Relief  from  south  flank  of  the  Parthenon  : 
head  of  man  nearly  free  from  background 

(Original  in  British  Museum) 

thenon  (see  Fig.  1 1  ),  where  the  heads  are  free 
while  the  bodies  are  in  alto-rilievo.  In  these 
instances  the  carving  still  keeps  the  character  of 
relief  in  spite  of  the  free  members  of  it,  and  this 
because  it  is  treated  as  relief,  as  described  in  the 

[40] 


RELIEF   AND  INTAGLIO 


Fig.  12.    Concavo-convex  Relief :  Temple  of  Kalabsheh  in 
upper  Egypt  (the  ancient  Talmis) 


(Original  in  the  building) 


definitions  and  as  explained  below.  Furthermore, 
in  Egyptian  architectural  work  and  again  in  Jap- 

[4i  ] 


CAR  VI N  G 


anese  carvings  in  ivory  and  wood,  a  kind  of 
relief  is  used  in  which  the  background  is  not 
cleared  away,  not  cut  down  or  abated1  to  the  level 
of  the  least  projecting  parts  of  the  sculpture  ;  see 
Fig.  i  2,  which  shows  a  detail  of  the  wall  sculpture 
in  the  temple  of  Kalabsheh.  Such  sculpture  as 
this  is  called  by  various  names,  as  concavo-convex 
or  coelanaglyphic  relief ;  and,  technically,  cavo- 
rilievo  and  intaglio  rilievato. 

Some  sculpture  in  relief  has  many  different 
kinds  of  relief  in  one  composition.  Thus,  the 
foreground  figures  will  be  in  high,  even  in  the 
highest  relief,  and  the  figures  in  the  distance  in 
the  lowest  relief  possible,  as  low  as  that  shown 
upon  coins,  while  all  the  different  degrees  of  relief 
are  used  between  these.  There  is  absolutely  no 
accepted  law  controlling  this.  The  carver  is  free 
to  use  his  own  system,  and  to  be  guided  by  his  own 
instinct  as  controlled  by  a  gained  sense  of  propriety 
and  reserve.  In  Fig.  i  if,  a  piece  of  Chinese  carving 
in  lacquer,  the  figures  in  the  boat  and  the  boat 
itself  are  seen  to  be  relieved  upon  a  background  of 
slight  ridges  in  a  pattern  meant  to  give  the  effect 
of  rippled  water  :  while  the  trees  and  figures  on 
the  land  as  well  as  the  elaborate  flower  on  the 
outer  curve  of  the  box  have  a  background  of  sim- 

1  Abated:  lowered  with  deliberate  intention  to  produce  an  artistic 
effect  as  to  set  off  a  piece  of  carving  or  the  like,  as  when  a  background  is 
either  hammered  back,  if  it  is  in  metal,  or  compressed  by  blows  as  with  a 
punch  if  it  is  wood,  or  cut  away  if  it  is  stone. 

'  [  42  ] 


Fig.   14.     Statue  by  Canova,  of  Pius  VI,  pope  1  775-1  800.  Rome, 
St.  Peter's,  in  the  Confessio 


HE  LIEF    ON   MANY  PLANES 


ilar  character.  It  is  all  relief  sculpture  together, 
but  of  many  planes.  "  Sculpture  in  the  round  " 
may  also  be  accompanied  by  much  work  in  relief. 
Thus,  in  portrait  statues  like  that  of  Pope  Pius 
VI  in  St.  Peter's  Church,  Fig.  14,  and  in  many 


Fig.  13.     Chinese  box  :  dark  red  carved  lacquer  (tio-tsi) 

similar  works  of  sculpture,  the  adornments  of  the 
dress  and  accessories  (in  this  case  ecclesiastical 
embroidery)  are  shown  in  decided  relief. 

So  far,  the  necessary  defining  and  limitation 
of  the  term  carving  has  taken  us  ;  it  is  now  to  be 
urged  that  much  the  greater  part  of  carving  which 
the  world  has  seen  as  yet  has  been  in  the  nature 

[43  ] 


C  A  R  V I  N  G 


of  decorative  work  done  in  a  way  unconsciously. 
The  paddle  described  in  Chapter  II  is  an  instance 
of  the  simple  kind  of  carving  in  which  a  smooth 
surface  is  attacked  by  the  tool,  slight  hollows  being 
made  in  the  surface;  when,  if  relief  sculpture 
should  appear,  that  would  be  left  in  relief  upon 
sunken  ground.  That  is  the  actual  condition  in 
many  kinds  of  carving,  executed  in  different  epochs. 
Thus  the  Japanese  take  part  of  the  tusk  of  an 
elephant,  the  harder  exterior  cleared  of  its  softer 
parts,  and  made  into  a  rather  clumsy  decorative 
vase  by  being  attached  to  a  stand  :  and  the  sur- 
face will  be  carved  in  representation  of  some 
legend  or  incident  with  human  and  animal  figures, 
the  relief  of  which  cannot  rise  above  the  surface 
of  the  tusk.  Here  is  concavo-convex  sculpture  re- 
sorted to  (see  pages  41,  42),  chiefly  to  save  labor 
and  to  avoid  weakening  the  material.  The  same 
thing  is  done  on  the  surface  of  a  body  as  thin  and 
friable  as  the  shell  of  an  ostrich  egg,  and  here  is 
an  interesting  illustration  of  the  refined  boldness 
of  such  work  in  the  hands  of  an  Oriental  artist. 
A  scrap  or  ivory  of  fine  grain  is  used  for  the  head 
and  face  of  a  human  figure,  the  rest  of  which  is 
worked  in  the  egg-shell  itself:  and  this  bit  of 
ivory  may  then  project  beyond  the  ovoid  surface  : 
for  there  is  no  superstition  in  the  artist's  spirit 
concerning  the  prescribed  limitations  of  this  sculp- 
ture in  cavo-rilievo.  In  like  manner,  the  Indian 
carvings   made  to-day  for   architectural  purposes 

[44] 


THE  PIECE  SOMETIMES  SHAPED  BY  CARVING 


and  imported  into  the  United  States  are  so  re- 
strained that  the  series  of  bosses  or  clusters  of 
leafage  are  kept  below  the  raised  rim  or  moulding 
which  is  left  on  either  side  :  that  is  to  say,  the 
strip  of  soft  wood  has  two  edges  left  of  their  full 
thickness,  while  the  middle  band  is  cut  away  and 
dug  out  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  the  separate 
units  of  the  design  relieved  upon  a  background 
which  the  carver's  tool  shapes  on  either  side  of 
them  and  between  them.  Precisely  the  same 
method  of  work  was  in  use  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  in  France,  and  again  the 
same  way  of  producing  an  effect  is  traceable  to  the 
spirited  and  powerful  sculpture  of  the  Gothic 
churches,  in  which  one  of  the  most  common 
methods  of  architectural  effect  was  to  set  leafage 
in  distinct  outlining  upon  a  shadow,  which  was 
produced  by  cutting  a  deep  hollow  cove  or  cavetto 
—  in  long  continued  straight  lines  or  curves. 
Thus  the  main  lines  of  an  arch  are  often  empha- 
sized by  such  a  deep  hollow  moulding,  above  which 
and  relieved  against  the  shade  of  the  hollow  is  a 
long  series  of  clusters  of  leafage,  rather  closely 
studied  from  nature  (see  Chapter  XXVI  and  Fig. 
208). 

It  must  be  noted  also  that  the  carving  of  a  dec- 
orative object  often  involves  the  shaping  of  the 
piece.  Its  ultimate  form  is  not  given  it  until  the 
carved  leafage  or  animal  forms  of  the  surface  and 
the  main  contour  are  produced  together.  Thus 

[45  ] 


CARVING 


in  Fig.  15a  very  small  cup  of  dark  wood  has  two 
handles  formed  of  the  stems  of  a  flowering  plant, 
the  flowers  and  leaves  of  which  adorn  opposite 
sides  of  the  cup,  coming  between  the  handles. 
As  the  whole  of  this  has  been  wrought  in  one 
piece  of  wood,  it  is  evident  that,  until  the  piece  was 
finally  complete,  the  form  of  the  cup  had  no  exist- 
ence except  in  the  artist's  mind.  This  manner  of 
work  is  carried  to  its  extreme  of  refinement,  and 

of  skilled  overcom- 
ing of  difficulties  in 
the  carving,  in  that 
elaborate  work  in 
jade,  rock-crystal, 
and  other  very  hard 
stones,  for  which  the 
„  Chinese  are  especially 

Tig.  15.     Chinese  Cup  or  dark  r  J 

red  Wood  famous;  although 

similar  work  has  been 
done  in  all  ages  in  Europe  and  is  still  done,  though 
with  less  frequency  (see  Chapter  XXI).  Such  work 
is  worthy  of  note  as  illustrating  the  last  complete- 
ness of  carving;  considered  as  an  industrial  fine  art. 

It  is  impossible  to  feel  any  certainty  as  to  the 
earliest  works  of  carving,  whether  they  were  in 
the  round  or  in  relief.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
figures  we  buy  of  sailors,  where  the  twisted  root  of 
a  plant  which  has  already  some  resemblance  to  the 
human  figure,  and  has  been  worked  into  a  closer 
resemblance,  suggests  an  original  adoption  of  sim- 

[46] 


EARLY   CARVING   IS   OF   ALL  FORMS 


ilar  methods  in  the  representation  of  the  human 
head  or  body  in  the  round.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  natural  even  to  children,  to  the  few  who, 
in  our  sophisticated  and  school-taught  epoch,  show 
the  gift  of  artistic  observation,  to  model  figures  on 
the  sand  of  the  shore,  which  figures  are,  of  course, 
in  relief ;  and  in  like  manner  the  incised  pattern  in 
Fig.  i  of  Chapter  II  leads  directly  into  the  relief 
pattern  given  in  Fig.  2  of  the  same  Chapter,  and 
the  sailor  who  whittles  a  row  of  notches  in  the 
plank-sheer  of  his  barge  is  producing  an  effective 
carved  moulding  in  relief  upon  the  smooth  rounded 
sides  of  the  vessel.  The  tendency  is  at  once  tow- 
ard each  of  these  forms  of  sculpture,  and  it  may 
even  be  thought  that  the  concavo-convex  sculpture, 
mentioned  above  (see  Fig.  12),  is  the  direct  result 
of  carving  begun  in  relief  with  the  intention  of 
lowering  (abating)  the  whole  background  to  a  uni- 
form level,  but  that  patience  having  given  out,  the 
original  smooth  surface  was  left  with  the  figures 
filling  the  bottom  of  a  depression  no  bigger  than 
themselves. 

The  sculpture  on  the  fronts  of  the  celebrated 
Lion  Tombs  of  Lycia  is  a  familiar  instance  of 
relief  sculpture  on  a  very  large  scale  intended  to 
dominate  the  country,  and  for  this  purpose  cut 
upon  the  bare  face  of  a  beetling  crag  ;  but  much 
larger  designs  of  the  same  sort  are  carried  out  on 
cliffs  in  Persia,  and  those  colossal  portrait  reliefs 
of  warrior  kings,  thought  to  be  of  the  time  of  the 

[47  ] 


C  A  R  V I N  G 


Sassanian  dynasty  in  the  fourth  or  fifth  century 
a.  d.,  are  complete  bas-reliefs,  with  all  the  back- 
ground cleared  away.  Fig.  1 6  shows  a  similar 
large-scale  relief  of  finer  quality,  a  tomb-front  in 
Lycia,  wrought  under  Grecian  influence. 


Fig.  i 6.     Tomb  at  Limvra,  Asia  Minor 

(From  Petersen  and  Von  Luschan) 

In  this  connection  there  should  be  mentioned 
the  common  assertion  that  architectural  carving 
preceded  all  other  sculpture  ;  this  being  urged  as 
a  sentimental  consideration  regarding  the  impor- 
tance of  architectural  art.  As  noted  above,  sculp- 
ture in  relief  and  sculpture  in  the  round  have 
generally  gone  on  together ;  but  architectural 
sculpture  is  nearly  always  in  relief.  So  far  as  we 
can  date  the   earliest   sculptures  of  pure  Greek 

[48  ] 


EARLY   CARVING   IS   OF   ALL  FORMS 


character,  such  as  the  Selinus  alto-reliefs,  the 
painted  bas-reliefs  found  in  1886  on  the  Acrop- 
olis, and  the  archaic  statues  exhibited  in  the  central 
museum  at  Athens  (  Apollo  of  Thera,  Apollo  of 
Andros),  these  tomb-statues  are  of  nearly  the  same 
date  as  the  bas-reliefs.  Among  the  painted  statues 
found  on  the  Acropolis  in  1883  and  in  1886  there 
are  some  which  are  as  early  as  any  Greek  relief 
sculpture  known  to  us  ;  and  one  at  least  among 
them  is  a  close  reproduction  in  stone  of  a  xoanon,1 
which  piece  in  its  original  form  would  probably 
be  older  than  the  oldest  Greek  reliefs  in  stone.  So 
with  Egyptian  antiquity  ;  the  free  statues  in  wood, 
and  even  in  hard  mottled  granite,  are  known  to  be 
as  old  as  the  oldest  relief  sculpture.  Of  the  Fourth 
Dynasty  (perhaps  about  4000  b.  c.)  and  of  earlier 
reigns  are  bas-reliefs  in  wood  and  in  stone  repre- 
senting scenes  and  giving  portraits,  sculpture  in 
cavo-rilievo  full  of  character  in  the  heads,  and 
wooden  and  hard  stone  statues  of  life-size  and 
above  it.  It  has  been  thought,  until  very  recent 
discoveries  were  made,  that  the  great  Sphinx  near 
the  Pvramids  of  Gizeh  was  the  most  ancient  piece 
of  sculpture  known,  and  this  figure  is  cut  entirely 
in  the  natural  rock  :  for  recent  investigation  has 

1  Xoanon :  a  verv  earlv  statue  of  which  the  head  and  usually  the  hands 
and  feet  are  worked  into  some  semblance  of  life,  while  the  body  remains 
verv  slightly  finished  or  even  a  mere  block,  because  intended  to  be  draped 
with  textile  material  in  a  ceremonial  wav  ;  the  bodv,  therefore,  is  com- 
monly of  wood,  while  the  head  and  extremities  may  be  of  marble  or  other 
finer  material. 

vol.  1—4  [  49  ] 


CARVING 


contradicted  the  former  opinion  that  a  part  was 
built  up  in  masonry.  It  is  a  statue  in  its  concep- 
tion ;  but  the  forelegs  and  paws  are  of  the  nature 
of  relief  in  that  they  are  raised  upon  the  back- 
ground of  living  rock  below  them  ;  and  they 
enclose  a  small  shrine  which  itself  is  partly  cut  in 
solid  rock  and  is  partly  built.  Of  precisely  the 
same  character  are  the  spoons,  ladles,  and  trays 
preserved  in  the  museum  at  Gizeh.  In  these  the 
piece  of  wood  is  shaped  to  the  form  required  for 
the  shallow  bowl  and  the  handle  of  fairly  conve- 
nient form,  and  by  the  same  operation  the  bowl  is 
surrounded  by  a  delicate  moulding  of  zigzags  or 
billets,  and  the  handle  is  wrought  into  the  form 
of  a  woman  surrounded  by  lotus  blossoms  and 
stems,  or  a  nude  figure,  whose  outstretched  arms 
serve  to  support  the  bowl,  or  some  equally  elab- 
orate combination  of  significant  forms.  The  fact 
seems  to  be  that  the  early  carvers  worked,  now  on 
a  separate  block  of  wood,  which  they  meant  to 
fashion  into  human  or  other  form,  now  on  a  larger 
surface,  as  of  smoothed  rock,  on  which  they  meant 
to  cut  a  design  at  once  representative  and  decora- 
tive, and  suitable  to  the  tomb  or  temple  hollowed 
out  within,  or  the  simple  receptacle  or  utensil 
needed.  In  Assyrian  art  we  know  almost  no 
sculpture  but  low  reliefs  in  slabs  of  alabaster  and 
gigantic  figures  of  bulls,  winged  or  human  headed, 
which,  though  apparently  statues,  are  really  reliefs 
worked  on  two  adjacent  sides  of  a  solid  block,  as 

[50] 


MECHANICAL   PROCESSES  USED 


where  four  legs  are  shown,  as  of  necessity,  in  the 
side  view,  but  also  two  legs  in  front.  Much 
earlier  than  this,  however,  are  the  separate  statues 
found  in  southern  Mesopotamia  and  identified  with 
Chaldean  art,  such  as  existed  centuries  before  the 
Assyrian  empire  was  established. 

As  to  the  processes  employed,  the  carver  is  sure 
to  use  the  tools  by  means  of  which  other  work- 
men less  concerned  with  artistic  design  are  work- 
ing around  him.  Thus,  the  reliefs  of  the  Lycian 
tombs  (Fig.  16)  have  been  worked  with  just  such 
pointing  tools1  and  chisels2  as  were  used  by  the 
workmen  who  cut  in  the  solid  rock  the  hollow 
tomb  within  and  the  square  doorway  leading  to  it. 
As  the  rock  is  harder  or  less  hard,  the  use  of  deli- 
cate chisels,  not  unlike  the  pointing  tool  but  much 
more  slender,  and  with  short,  straight,  sharp  edges, 
is  less  or  more  practicable.  In  the  soft  limestone 
of  the  Paris  basin,  so  much  used  in  the  north  of 
France  and  imported  into  America  under  the 
name  of  Caen  stone,  delicate  tools  like  these  can 


1  Pointing  Tool:  called  also  point  ;  in  modern  times,  usually  a  steel 
bar  or  at  least  an  iron  bar  with  a  steel  point,  sometimes  pyramidal. 
With  this  the  first  cutting  of  a  rough  stone  is  done,  for  the  workman 
goes  around  the  edge  of  the  stone,  keeping  the  level  surface  which  he  has 
produced  in  a  true  plane  by  means  of  a  straight-edge  or  rule  at  the  cor- 
ners, and  also  cuts  two  diagonal  grooves  across  the  face  of  the  stone  from 
corner  to  corner,  the  straight-edge  working  in  these  also,  and  enabling  him 
gradually  to  bring  the  whole  stone  to  a  true  plane  surface. 

2  Chisel :  in  stone  cutting,  either  with  a  straight-edge,  or  with  a  number 
of  teeth.  The  first  is  more  commonly  called  the  drove  chisel,  from  the 
peculiar  nature  of  the  work  produced  by  it  ;  the  other,  the  tooth  chisel. 

[5l'] 


C  A  R  V I  N  G 


be  used,  and  the  carving  done  as  if  one  were  work- 
ing in  alabaster.  Very  light  taps  of  a  wooden 
mallet  are  all  that  is  needed  to  impel  the  chisel. 


Fig.  17.     Portal  of  Chapel  at  Convent  ot  Batalha,  Portugal 


When  elaborate  carving  is  being  made  in  limestone 
the  blows  are  not  more  noisy  than  those  of  a  wood- 
pecker on  a  tree  ;  and  frequently  for  a  moment  the 
mallet  is  abandoned,  and  the  chisel  used  nearly  like 
a  knife-blade  (which  itself  may  be  used  at  times) 

[  52  ] 


PROCESSES    USED    IN    HARD  MATERIAL 


to  cut  and  scrape  away  small  excrescences.  Very 
elaborate  carving  is  apt  to  come  of  the  use  of  a 
harder  and  close-grained  stone.  Fig.  17  shows 
the  portal  which,  in  the  convent  of  Batalha  in 
Portugal,  leads  from  the  little  court  east  of  the 
church  into  the  marvellous  "unfinished  chapel;" 
and  it  is  plain  that  the  builders  were  well-advised 
who  chose  a  stone  which  has  held  its  sharp  edges, 
its  delicate  finish  and  its  elaborate  undercutting  for 
four  hundred  years.  On  the  other  hand,  in  hard 
rock,  chiselling  is  so  slow  and  painful  a  task  that, 
even  admitted  the  constant  use  or  the  stone-saw  and 
the  drill  with  emery  or  diamond  powder,  much 
conjecture  has  existed  among  modern  archaeologists 
as  to  the  means  employed  to  work  the  diorite  and 
basalt  not  uncommon  in  Egyptian  sculpture. 

Lapidaries  work  in  still  harder  stones  —  jade, 
agate,  rock  crystal,  and  the  like  —  by  means  of  the 
drill.  This  instrument  bores  smooth,  round  holes 
by  the  friction  of  a  sharp-cutting  powder  applied 
to  a  pin,  which  is  not  necessarily  ot  very  hard  ma- 
terial. Cameo  work  in  stone  and  glass,  although 
in  relief,  is  mainly  done  by  the  revolving  drill  and 
the  revolving  wheel  ;  that  is  to  say,  all  this  sculpture 
in  very  hard  material  is  not  so  much  cut  as  it  is  worn 
and  rubbed  —  friction  being  substituted  for  the  cut- 
tins:  ed«;e.  Holes  that  are  bored  by  the  drill  leave 
between  them  solid  walls  of  the  material  which 
have  to  be  partly  cut,  partly  broken  away;  and 
here  again  the  work  has  to  be  finished  by  the  fric- 

[  53  ] 


CARVING 


tion  of  diamond  dust  or  emery  applied  to  the 
hand-held  tool.  We  know  that  gem  engraving 
(see  Chapter  XXI)  in  the  most  ancient  as  well  as 
in  recent  times  was  done  in  this  way.  The  infer- 
ence is  that  similar  processes,  involving  the  slow 
work  of  many  months,  were  largely  used,  even  in 
colossal  sculpture. 

On  the  other  hand,  carving  in  steel  —  for  some 
very  exquisite  decorative  work  of  the  Middle  Ages 
and  of  the  Renaissance  was  produced  by  working 
in  the  surface  of  that  metal  —  is  not  extremely 
difficult  (see  Die-Sinking,  Chapter  XXI),  though 
it  is  of  course  never  clear  how  nearly  the  metal 
has  been  shaped  originally,  as  by  casting,  so  as  to 
approach  the  finished  shape  in  its  details  (see 
Fig.  1 8).  The  Japanese  of  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries  worked  in  bronze  with  ex- 
treme delicacy,  and  it  is  evident  that  the  finest 
pieces  of  this  work  are  cut  in  the  solid  metal  with 
but  little  help  from  casting;  that  is  to  say,  the 
general  form  is  got  by  careful  casting  in  well 
made  moulds,  but  all  the  surface  as  it  comes  to  us 
has  been  elaborately  finished  with  the  tool.  It 
is  evident  that  your  casting  may  be  so  fine  as  to 
leave  only  surface  work  to  be  done  by  the  tool. 
In  such  working  in  the  solid  mass  the  names  of  the 
tools  and  their  appearance  differ  very  much  accord- 
ing to  the  material.  Thus,  in  metal  work,  the 
chasing  tool,  of  which  more  is  said  below  in 
the  chapter  on  metal  work,  passes  insensibly  into 

[54] 


PROCESSES   USED   IN  METAL-WORK 


the  chisel  in  the  usual  sense,  and  the  surface,  if 
sometimes  got  by  cutting  away  the  metal,  is  got 
also  by  lowering  it  in  the  usual  way  of  chasing. 


Fig.  i  8.     Lower  half  of  wrought  steel  Door,  i  8  inches 
wide,  fifteenth  century 

(Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club,  1900) 

The  work  of  the  engraver  should  be  compared 
with  this  (see  Chapter  IV  and  Chapter  XXI),  for 
engraving  always  consists  in  removing  the  material. 

There  is,  then,  no  great  difference  between  the 
work  of  him  who  is  cutting  away  the  stone  rapidly 
and  knocking  off  big  chips,  and  of  him  who  is 

[55] 


CARVING 


delicately  removing  in  the  form  of  tine  dust  the 
superfluous  material  from  the  surface  of  marble,  or 
in  little  curls  or  shavings  from  a  surface  of  bronze  ; 
and  no  essential  difference  between  this  work  and 
that  of  the  lapidary  with  his  drill.  In  one  respect, 
however,  the  processes  differ  very  greatly,  and  that 
is  in  the  kind  of  preparation  which  has  to  be  made, 
and  the  care  which  has  to  be  taken  in  advance  to 
keep  the  workmen  from  vain  and  destructive  work 
in  a  material  which  is  too  precious  to  be  wasted, 
and  also  at  a  loss  of  valuable  time.  Thus,  when 
vou  see,  cut  on  an  obelisk  in  a  cemetery,  a  small 
panel  sunk  three-fourths  of  an  inch  below  the  sur- 
face of  the  marble  and  enclosing  a  bunch  of  flowers 
in  bas-relief,  that  piece  of  work  may  probably  have 
been  done  with  nothing  to  guide  the  carver  more 
elaborate  than  a  simple  drawing  in  lead-pencil  or 
pen  and  ink  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  and  of  the  same 
size  as  the  carving  ;  but,  in  the  case  of  a  very  large 
piece  of  work,  no  such  full-size  drawing  would  be 
available,  and  in  the  case  of  the  Lycian  and  Per- 
sian rock-reliefs  we  can  hardly  imagine  a  pliant 
material  of  parchment  or  made  of  vegetable  fibre 
procurable  in  sheets  large  enough  to  allow  of  any 
such  drawing  being  made  (see  definition  of  Car- 
toon). There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Lycian 
figures  were  outlined  in  stiff  color,  probably  red, 
on  the  smooth  face  of  the  rock,  and  this  was  prob- 
ably done  from  a  sketch  which  the  artist  may 
have  made  in  small,  while  the  carver  then  went 

[56] 


S  U  R  F  A  C  E   FINIS  H 


to  work  lowering  the  background  until  he  was 
satisfied  with  the  amount  of  relief,  which  relief  he 
then  proceeded  to  finish  by  cutting  away  and 
rounding  the  bounding  edges,  —  a  slight  and  unso- 
phisticated way  of  work  which,  however,  it  is 
well  for  us  to  note,  because  it  shows  the  essential 
nature  of  relief  sculpture.  Such  sculpture  is  not 
made  like  a  half  statue  ;  it  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
primarily,  like  one  flat  thing  projecting  from 
another  flat  thing,  but  rounded  slowly  as  to  its 
principal  surface  and  more  abruptly  as  to  its  edges, 
which  may  even  be  undercut,1  and  project,  so  as 
to  throw  sharp-edged  shadows  —  though  this  is 
not  a  common  treatment. 

The  surface  finish  is  important  in  all  carving  ; 
and  carving  can  never  be  described  without  an  ac- 
count of  this.  In  all  the  harder  materials  the 
carver  is  apt  to  seek  some  approximation  to  polish.2 

1  Undercut:  left  in  the  solid,  "in  the  round,"  by  having  the  material 
cut  away  between  it  and  the  background  ;  said  of  part  of  a  relief  (see  the 
definition  of  relief),  or  in  simple  architectural  ornament,  of  a  moulding  or 
the  like  where  the  stone  or  wood  overhangs,  throwing  a  very  decided 
shadow  upon  the  space  hollowed  out  below. 

2  Polish  :  such  smoothness  of  surface  as  reflects  rays  of  light  in  a  notice- 
able way,  and  which,  when  carried  further,  will  reflect  objects  visibly. 
This  may  be  produced  by  mere  smoothness,  however  brought  about  (as 
when  the  amalgam  of  mercury  laid  on  the  back  of  a  sheet  of  glass  takes 
its  smoothness  from  the  glass  itself),  or  by  the  addition  of  a  liquid  or  paste 
which  fills  up  the  minute  irregularities,  the  pores,  etc.  When  varnish  is 
applied,  the  surface  is  simply  covered  by  a  material  which  easily  takes  a 
perfectly  smooth,  glossy  surface  itself ;  but  the  term  "  polish  "  is  often  used 
in  contradistinction  to  varnish,  as  when  a  lover  of  old  furniture  says  that  he 
cares  for  polished  wood  and  detests  the  furniture  of  the  times  when  they 
used  varnish  freely  ;  see  definition  of  patina. 

[57] 


CARVING 


This  is  carried  to  the  furthest  point  in  carvings  in 
jade,  crystal,  agate,  and  the  like,  as  has  been  stated 
above. 

Marble  statues  and  busts  were  often  highly 
polished  in  antiquity  and  in  the  neoclassic  1  epoch. 
Indeed,  the  Greeks  and  the  artists  of  the  Greco- 
Roman  period,  whose  most  important  works  were 
generally  put  into  bronze  lor  the  temple  or  monu- 
ment to  which  they  were  first  attached,  could 
hardly  have  preferred  any  other  surface  to  that 
perfectly  uniform  and  shining  surface  so  easily 
obtained  in  the  bronze  casting  when  properly 
finished  by  hand.  The  modern  disposition  to 
object  to  a  high  polish  on  the  surface  of  a  statue 
or  bust  is  founded  largely  on  a  fancy  that  it 
looks  "  unnatural."  The  notion  is  that  the  carver 
should  try  to  imitate  the  surface  of  the  human 
skin  ;  and  in  this  connection  one  is  reminded  of 
the  alleged  invention  bv  the  sculptor  Vela  of  a 
special  tool  for  cutting  the  surface  of  the  blanket 
which  envelops  the  lower  part  of  the  figure  of  his 

1  Neoclassic :  having  to  do  with  the  attempted  revival  of  the  artistic 
feelings  and  processes  of  classical  antiquity.  In  Italy  the  neoclassic  period 
begins  with  the  closing  years  of  the  fourteenth  century.  In  the  north  of 
Europe,  about  eighty  years  later.  It  may  be  thought  to  have  ended  with 
the  wars  of  the  French  Revolution  and  the  rise  of  contemporary  European 
civilization.  During  those  years,  from  1420  to  181  5  in  Italy,  and  from 
1500  to  1780  in  France,  no  building  was  begun  with  other  thought  than 
that  of  pursuing  the  course  of  development  of  a  previously  well-known 
style,  while  changes,  and  what  were  considered  improvements,  came  in 
gradually  :  the  reference  to  antique  art  being  always  slight  and  generally 
mistaken  in  essentials. 

[58] 


ARTISTIC   CONVENTIONS  EMPLOYED 


Last  Days  of  Napoleon.  Sculpture  has  to  do  with 
form  alone  ;  a  statue  is  a  true  copy  of  the  human 
form,  or  of  so  much  of  it  as  the  sculptor  finds  that 
he  can  express,  hut  it  is  in  no  respect  a  copy  of 
the  human  body,  and  still  less  can  it  be  a  copy  of 
the  garments  worn  upon  the  body.  Beautiful  and 
interesting  form  is  the  chief  thing  sought  for  by 
the  sculptor  of  the  human  body  and  its  parts,  and 
a  similar  truth  exists  with  regard  to  all  kinds  of 
carving.  The  twig  of  leaves  on  a  jade  vase  is  not 
imitated  from  nature  ;  it  is  a  decorative  adjunct 
carefully  studied  from  nature,  the  study  going  no 
further  than  the  carver  finds  he  can  go  easily  in 
rendering  the  diaphanous  leaves  and  the  slender 
twigs.  But,  as  before  said,  beauty  of  surface  is  an 
immensely  important  adjunct,  and  this  may  be 
gained  by  mere  perfectness  of  finish,  or  by  color, 
as  is  explained  elsewhere. 

It  is  also  not  uncommon  to  use  relief  and  also 
intaglio  to  represent  that  which  has  no  form  in 
reality.  Thus,  to  give  the  effect  of  the  pupil  of 
the  eye,  the  sculptor  sometimes  abandons  truth  of 
form,  which  would  require  an  absolutely  unmarked 
rounded  surface  to  the  eyeball  as  seen  between  the 
lids,  and  cuts  a  deep,  partly  circular  groove,  with 
perhaps  a  central  pit  to  express  the  pupil  of  the 
eye.  In  this  way  the  effect  of  life  is  got  by  con- 
tradicting the  facts  of  life  ;  and  such  conventions 
are  very  common  in  sculpture  of  all  sorts.  They 
were  rendered  necessary  in  expressional  work  by 

[59] 


C  A  R  V I  N  G 


the  abandonment  in  late  times  of  painting  applied 
to  the  carved  figure  ;  but  even  while  statuary  and 
relief  were  freely  painted,  as  in  the  Gothic  period, 
these  conventions  were  used  to  secure  greater 
emphasis. 

It  is  noticeable  how  little  in  all  times  the  artist 
in  carving  has  been  influenced  by  the  nature  of 
the  material.  The  surface  of  the  carving  in  wood, 
especially  in  open-grained  wood  like  oak,  differs 
greatly  from  the  surface  of  the  carving  in  stone, 
and  still  more  from  the  carving  in  the  hardest  or 
finest  grained  stones ;  but  it  is  as  to  the  surface 
chiefly  that  the  artist  finds  an  interest  in  the  pecu- 
liarity of  his  material.  As  regards  his  treatment 
of  the  subject,  that  is  so  strongly  affected  by  the 
artist's  own  sense  of  what  the  form  must  be,  his 
own  design  as  conceived  by  himself,  his  own  idea 
of  the  human  body,  the  plant  or  animal  as  he  sees 
it  in  his  mind  conventionalized  and  prepared  for 
rendering  in  carving,  —  all  that  is  so  much  more 
important  to  him  than  any  question  of  material, 
that  he  is  apt  to  force  his  material,  whatever  it 
may  be,  into  a  semblance  of  his  dream.  In  details 
only  is  there  much  difference  in  the  result  of  carv- 
ing in  this  or  in  that  material.  It  is  sometimes 
said  of  the  drapery  of  an  antique  marble  statue  that 
it  is  visibly  a  copy  of  the  bronze  original,  the 
drapery  being  disposed  as  the  designer  for  bronze 
would  naturally  have  cast  it.  Too  much  must 
not  be  made  of  this  tempting  subject ;  there  is 

[60] 


REFINEMENTS   OF   SURFACE  FORM 


not  a  single  bronze  in  that  wonderful  collection 
at  Naples  of  life-size  busts  and  statues,  all  of 
unquestioned  and  unaltered  antiquity,  not  one 
which  could  not  be  copied  in  marble  or  in 
boxwood  with  perfect  success,  the  archaic  treat- 
ment of  some  ringlets  of  hair  alone  excepted 
(see  Fig.  58). 

Refinements  of  curvature  are,  however,  of  the 
very  highest  importance  to  the  artist.  The  carver 
loves  delicate  modulations  of  surface  for  their  own 
sake,  and  not  merely  because  they  represent  the 
cheek  or  the  wrist  of  the  fair  and  perfect  human 
body.  The  natural  beauty  of  the  shades  with 
which  the  light  falling  upon  the  piece  invests  the 
retreating  and  projecting  surfaces,  the  combinations 
and  gradations,  passing  from  the  highest  light  to 
the  deepest  shadow,  which  the  piece  allows  and 
which  form  our  only  means  of  judging  by  the  eye 
of  the  surface  of  anything,  are  of  supreme  impor- 
tance to  the  carver  and  to  the  student  of  the  piece 
of  carving  as  well.  The  story  of  Michelangelo 
in  his  nearly  blind  old  age  caressing  with  his  hands 
the  famous  Torso  of  the  Vatican,  and  getting 
through  his  finger-tips  a  sense  of  its  beauty, 
whether  verifiable  or  not,  is  perfectly  credible. 
Even  as  this  sheet  is  in  hand,  an  intelligent  pos- 
sessor of  a  fine  modern  marble  says  to  the  present 
writer  that  his  piece  shows  finger-marks  —  he 
sees  it  with  his  hands,  mainly.  A  blind  man 
born  with  an  artistic  sense  may  be  imagined  as 

[61  ] 


CARVING 


creating  an  artistic  judgment  of  his  own,  and  as 
determining  between  two  pieces  with  regard  to 
their  relative  merit  ;  but  it  is  perfectly  certain  that 
a  man  who  has  not  always  been  blind,  and  has 
learned  through  the  eye  to  love  artistically  treated 
form,  could  receive  enjoyment  by  the  touch,  and 
could  even,  within  limits,  compare  the  beauty  of 
different  pieces  of  carving. 

All  these  questions  of  artistic  treatment  of  form 
belong  to  modelling  as  well,  and  are  treated  in  that 
connection  in  Chapter  IV.  The  truths  with  re- 
gard to  such  artistic  conceptions,  and  the  appre- 
ciation of  them  by  others  than  the  artist  who 
has  created  them,  assume  a  different  aspect  as 
each  separate  process  of  work  is  considered,  and 
therefore  what  appears  to  be  repetition  should 
be  a  necessary  restating  of  the  case  for  the  new 
conditions. 


[62] 


Chapter  Four 


MODELLING1  AND  EMBOSSING2 

BY  a  curious  twist  of  the  meaning  of 
"plastic,"  the  term  "Plastic  Art"  has 
been  applied  to  sculpture  in  general. 
This  involves  the  recondite  idea  that 
even  hard  materials  are  plastic,  in  that  they  can 
be  given  shapes  as  diverse  as  those  which  can  be 
given  to  a  soft  material.  Except  in  that  sense, 
the  term  "plastic"  continues  to  mean  that  which 
can  be  changed  in  form  without  destruction  of 
its  essential  nature  ;  thus  a  piece  of  wax  in  cold 
weather  is  hardly  plastic  at  all,  as  it  will  break  if 

1  Modelling  :  handling  a  plastic  material  so  as  to  change  its  shape  in 
a  deliberate  way;  especially  with  the  purpose  of  obtaining  either  an 
artistic  effect  or  a  shape  of  some  sort  from  which  something  else  is  to  be 
copied.  It  includes  the  making  of  models  when  they  are  of  plastic  ma- 
terial ;  and  therefore  the  shaping  of  a  member  of  a  structure  in  clay  or 
wax,  with  the  view  to  making  a  mould  and  casting  from  the  mould,  is 
modelling,  as  well  as  the  work  of  the  artist.  The  making  of  models,  in 
the  sense  of  copies  on  a  small  scale  of  the  finished  or  unfinished  structure, 
as  of  a  public  building,  the  purpose  of  the  model  being  the  description  of 
the  building  to  those  who  cannot  see  it,  is  hardly  ever  called  modelling  ; 
it  would  be  rather  model-making. 

2  Embossing  :  properly  the  forming  of  relief  or  projection  (a  boss  or 
bosses  )  upon  a  surface;  in  fine  art,  generally,  the  raising  of  relief  patterns 
by  other  means  than  carving.  Thus,  sheets  of  metal  are  embossed  by 
hammering  on  the  back  (see  Repousse). 

[63  ] 


MODELLING   AND  EMBOSSING 


it  is  pressed  too  hard,  but  it  grows  more  and  more 
plastic  as  it  is  warmed,  and  finally  becomes  capable 
of  taking  and  keeping  any  form  that  the  modeller 
may  choose  to  give  it. 

In  the  modern  practice  of  the  art  of  the  sculptor, 
the  artist  works  almost  altogether  in  some  really 
plastic  material,  the  copies  of  his  work  in  hard 
material  being  usually  made  by  others  than  him- 
self. This  subject  is  treated  in  Chapter  XXIV; 
our  present  purpose  is  with  that  kind  of  modelling 
in  which  the  handiwork  of  the  artist  is  shown  as 
he  left  it,  nothing  modifying  it  except  exposure 
to  great  heat,  as  in  pottery  and  in  glass,  or  some 
other  preservative  process.  All  kinds  of  ceramic 
ware  depend  for  much  of  their  interest  on  the 
work  of  the  modeller.  Even  a  plain  vessel  of 
rough  clay  is  of  finer  or  of  less  interesting  form, 
according  as  the  modelling  is  or  is  not  that  of  a 
man  of  taste  and  of  creative  energy.  The  use  of 
the  potter's  wheel  is  merely  a  simplification  of  the 
natural  movements  of  the  hand  when  trying  to 
get  a  circular,  horizontal  form  for  any  vessel. 
Thus,  if  the  potter  were  working  without  a  wheel, 
as  is  often  done  in  pieces  intended  to  be  especially 
free  and  bold  in  design,  like  many  cups  and  bowls 
in  modern  Japanese  art  and  European  imitations 
of  it,  the  mass  of  clay  would  still  be  set  upon  a 
piece  of  board,  a  tile,  or  the  like,  and  the  natural 
action  of  the  artist  would  be  to  turn  this  round 
from  time  to  time  as  rapidly  as  the  fingers  of  one 

[64  ]' 


PROCESSES  EMPLOYED 


hand  would  enable  him  to  do  it,  while  the  fingers 
of  the  other  hand  would  shape  it  within  and 
without.  The  potter's  wheel,  whether  moved  by 
the  hand  or  by  the  feet,  is  a  mere  device  for  turn- 
ing rather  more  rapidly  and  much  more  steadily 
the  plane  surface  upon  which  the  vessel  is  being 
shaped.  If  now,  to  the  vessel  so  formed,  a  handle 
or  spout  is  to  be  added,  which  addition  is  to  have 
considerable  artistic  character,  that  must  be  worked 
into  shape  by  the  fingers  and  thumb,  with  the  aid 
of  a  small  and  light  piece  of  stick  more  or  less 
carefully  prepared  for  the  purpose,  or  it  must  be 
pressed  in  a  previously  made  mould.  Both  of 
these  processes  are  in  common  use.  The  mould 
tends  toward  uniformity  and  therefore  toward  mo- 
notony.  Freehand  work  involves  the  taking  of 
so  much  time  that  the  tendency  would  be  to  aban- 
don ornament  altogether  in  the  case  of  pieces  that 
had  to  be  multiplied,  or  else  the  comparative  dis- 
regard of  their  quality  as  pieces  of  modelling,  and 
the  abandonment  of  any  high  standard  of  merit. 
Pieces  of  ceramic  art  not  turned  on  the  wheel 
must  of  course  be  modelled  throughout  by  the 
hand  or  by  means  of  moulds.  Thus,  the  rhyton1 
of  Greek  archaeology  is  commonly  made  in  the 
semblance  of  a  deer's  head  or  ram's  head  (see 
Fig.  37),  and  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  a  mould 
being  made,  either  for  the   whole   of  the  head 

1  Rhyton:  a  drinking  vessel  so  shaped  that  it  cannot  stand  erect  and 
contain  the  liquid  contents. 

vol.  i_5  [  65  ] 


MODELLING   AND  EMBOSSING 


outside  of  and  beyond  the  horns,  or  two  moulds, 
one  for  each  side  of  the  head  and  neck,  which  in 
that  case  may  be  moulded  wholly  except  for  the 


Fig.   19.     La  Danse  de  1'Echarpe,  by  A.  Leonard.     Figures  in 
Biscuit  of  Sevres  Porcelain 

(Sevres  Exhibit,  Paris,  1900) 

horns  themselves.  Studies  of  the  human  figure, 
of  animals  and  the  like,  are  modelled  directly  from 
memory  or  in  the  presence  of  the  object  repre- 
sented. The  sculptor  of  human  and  animal  form 
makes  studies  in  colored  wax,  a  lump  of  it  car- 
ried on  a  short  stick.     Then  again,  as  the  plastic 

[66] 


PLASTIC   MATERIAL    HARDENED   BY  HEAT 


material  does  not  suffer  from  repeated  handlings, 
and  as  it  is  scarcely  more  trouble  to  model 
roughly  a  whole  figure  than  one  part  of  it,  the 
modeller  is  often  seen  to  break  up  the  whole  of 
his  partly  completed  work  and  begin  again,  the 
work  that  he  has  done  sufficing  to  fill  his  mind 
with  the  preferred  form  on  which  he  has  decided, 
and  to  steady  his  hand  for  its  completion.  The 
terra-cotta  images  found  in  the  ruins  of  Tanagra 
in  Greece,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Smyrna  in  Asia 
Minor,  and  in  other  Greek  lands  (see  the  Sicilian 
examples,  Fig.  187),  the  groups  of  the  same 
material  made  by  Clodion  and  other  masters 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  portrait  busts 
not  uncommon  in  the  Paris  annual  exhibitions 
during  the  last  twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  the  pieces  of  porcelain  biscuit, 
such  as  those  shown  in  Fig.  19,  are  all  works  of 
ceramic  art 1  of  the  highest  kind,  that  is  to  say, 
they  are  of  baked  clay,  but  modelled  directly  with 
but  the  slightest  use  of  the  mould,  or  with  none  ; 
the  hand  and  the  modelling  tool  of  the  designer 
producing  the  actual  forms  which  we  admire,  with 
only  such  change  as  is  caused  by  a  shrinkage  in 
the  drying  out  of  the  clay  and  the  subsequent 

1  Ceramic  Art  (Keramic  Art)  :  the  art  which  has  to  do  with  objects 
made  of  clav,  and,  usually,  of  baked  clay,  or  of  any  compound  imitating 
natural  clay,  and  capable  of  being  hardened  by  the  heat  of  the  potter's 
oven.  Ceramic  wares  are  potterv,  which  term  is  used  in  a  general 
sense,  and  also  in  the  sense  of  the  coarser  kind,  excluding  porcelain, 
stoneware,  faience,  terra-cotta,  and  other  fine  varieties. 

[67] 


MODELLIX  G 


AND  EMBOSSING 


baking  or  firing.  Fig.  i  9  shows  two  statuettes  in 
biscuit  of  hard  porcelain  of  Sevres,  modelled  by 
Leonard  for  the  National  manufactory  and  ex- 
hibited at  Paris  in  1900.  They  are  part  of  a  set 
of  danseuses ;  each  figure  standing  about  sixteen 
inches  high.  These  pieces  are  complete ;  the 
originally  modelled  form  has  been  fixed  by  the 
heat  of  the  kiln.  In  Fig.  20,  however,  the  clay 
model  of  a  monument  to  W atteau  is  shown  as  it 
left  the  modeller's  hand;  or,  if  the  drying  of  the 
piece  has  been  aided  by  artificial  heat,  the  piece 
still  remains  the  mere  first  study  of  a  composi- 
tion to  be  erected  in  large,  and  in  some  enduring 
material.  In  other  words,  this  is  not  a  piece  of 
ceramic  art ;  the  modelling  is  in  wet  clay ;  its 
perpetuation  in  its  own  size  and  conditions  can 
only  be  by  means  of  a  cast  in  plaster  or  other 
hard-setting  material. 

The  work  done  in  baked  clay  for  buildings  as 
in  the  moulded  bricks  which  were  used  exten- 
sively in  Italy  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies and  later,  and  those  which  were  made 
during  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
in  England  and  America,  is  produced  largely  by 
means  of  moulds,  into  which  the  clay  is  forced 
under  a  great  pressure ;  and  this  for  the  double 
purpose  of  giving  to  the  work  that  sharpness  and 
accuracy  of  detail  which  modern  taste  is  supposed 
to  require,  and  the  possibility  of  multiplying  each 
pattern  somewhat  rapidly  and  with  perfect  uni- 

[68] 


PLASTIC   MATERIAL   NOT   TO  BE  HARDENED 


formity.  There  is,  however,  nothing  to  prevent 
the  use  of  entirely  free  and  original  modelling  of 


Fig.  20.     Study  in  clay,  monument  to  Watteau,  by  Lormier 

each  part.  A  house  might  perfectly  well  be  built 
in  which    every  external   ornament    should  be 

[69  ] 


MODELLING   AND  EMBOSSING 


modelled  especially  for  its  place,  and  this  by  the 
hands  of  the  owner  if  he  were  so  minded,  or  by 
a  sculptor  in  his  employ.  What  is  called  terra- 
cotta1 is  governed  by  the  same  conditions  exactly. 
In  all  such  work  the  artist's  idea  of  the  architec- 
tural sculpture  needed  is  embodied  in  modelled 
soft  material  instead  of  carved  hard  material.  The 
firing,  or  baking,  is  merely  a  device  employed  to 
make  the  soft  material  hard  and  permanent.  The 
necessity  of  using  heat  brings  with  it  some  precau- 
tions which  must  be  taken,  lest  the  shrinkage  of 
the  work  throw  it  out  of  all  form  and  comeliness. 

Modelling  is  preserved  for  us  also  when  it  is 
done  in  glass.  In  all  the  schools  of  decorative 
glass-work,  as  under  the  Roman  empire  and  in 
later  times  in  Venice,  France,  and  Bohemia, 
though  color  in  the  material  is  the  main  thing, 
(see  Chapter  IX),  moulded  parts  and  even  parts 
modelled  by  the  tool  are  constantly  in  use.  Under 
the  Romans  there  was  a  peculiarly  happy  use  of 

1  Terra- Cotta  :  hard  ceramic  ware,  a  term  meaning  baked  earth  and 
applied  generally  in  Italian  and  always  in  English  to  specially  prepared 
pieces  of  much  hardness  and  excellence  of  make.  Architectural  terra- 
cotta was  in  use  very  largely  in  certain  towns  of  Italy  through  the  epoch 
of  the  earliest  Renaissance;  thus  in  Bologna  and  Ferrara  beautiful  deco- 
rative work,  applied  to  doorways,  balconies,  arcades,  and  the  like,  dates 
from  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  It  was  rarely  used  in  the 
North  of  Europe.  The  application  of  the  term  to  brilliantly  colored  and 
highly  glazed  wares,  such  as  garden  seats,  vases,  and  the  like,  has  no 
especial  propriety  ;  even  the  Italian  work  in  colored  enamels,  as  ex- 
plained in  what  is  said  elsewhere  about  the  Robbia  work,  is  generally 
excluded  from  the  category  and  is  spoken  of  as  enamelled  ware  rather  than 
as  terra-cotta. 

[70] 


Fig.  21 


Bust  modelled  in  wax  and  colored 
Musee  Wicar 


Lille,  France  ; 


WAX    IN   ARTISTIC  WORK 


modelling  in  glass  in  connection  with  tiling,  such 
as  was  made  for  the  sheathing  of  walls.  Not  many 
fragments  of  it  have  come  down  to  us,  but  those 
that  have  are  sometimes  of  great  beauty,  the 
figures  being  exquisitely  designed  though  coarsely 
modelled,  as  if  rough  copies  of  well-known  beauti- 
ful originals. 

Modelling  which  is  not  made  hard  and  per- 
manent by  fire  may  still  be  preserved  for  a  length 
of  time  if  it  is  treated  with  respect.  The  remark- 
able wax  head  (see  Fig.  21)  in  the  Musee  Wicar 
at  Lille  in  France  is  of  disputed  origin,  having 
been  claimed  for  Greco-Roman  antiquity  and  also 
for  Raphael  :  it  is  evidently  of  the  most  glorious 
days  of  the  Renaissance.  It  was  rather  common 
in  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in 
England  as  well  as  in  France,  to  make  statuettes 
and  the  like  in  wax  completely  colored  in  close 
resemblance  to  life,  and  this  for  public  sale,  —  little 
figures  representing  the  characters  of  Dickens,  each 
under  its  own  glass  shade,  having  been  for  sale  in 
1840,  and  after.  Many  collections  of  minor 
works  of  art  contain  modelling  as  of  heads,  in  wax 
and  other  soft  materials  and  of  many  epochs, 
these  modelled  pieces  being  richly  colored  and 
gilded,  the  material  itself  being  sometimes  uncer- 
tain because  no  one  wishes  to  cut  into  it  sufficiently 
for  examination. 

Impressed  or  stamped  work  in  many  materials 
is  properly  a  modification  of  modelled  work  ;  but 

[7i  ] 


MODELLING   AND  EMBOSSING 


in  these  processes  the  engraving  of  the  stamp  or 
mould  is  so  much  the  most  important  part  of  the 
work,  artistically  speaking,  that  the  subject  belongs 
rather  to  die-sinking.     Still,  as  the  dies  have  to 

be  made  espe- 
cially with  a 
view  to  the  ma- 
terial to  be  im- 
pressed, designs 
in  stamped  horn, 
tortoise  shell, 
leather  (see 
Chapter  XI), 
and  wax  are  en- 
titled to  especial 
consideration  in 
Oriental  and  in 
European  art. 
Wax  allows  of 
almost  complete 
coloring ;  the 
other  materials 
are  generally 
used  for  the  medallion,  and  by  the  Japanese  for  the 
netsuke.1    Fig.  22  shows  a  medallion  portrait,  Eng- 


Fig.   22.     Portrait  medallion  in  pressed  horn, 
Frederic  Henry,  Prince  of  Orange,  signed 
by  John  Osborn,  1626 

("  Some  Minor  Arts") 


1  Netsuke  :  a  very  small  object  of  smooth  and  rounded  shape  used  by 
the  Japanese  to  receive  and  hold  one  end  of  the  silk  cord  to  which  is 
attached  a  pipe-case,  tobacco-pouch,  or  inro.  The  weight  of  the  larger 
object  cannot  drag  the  netsuke  through  the  girdle,  and  a  convenient 
means  of  grasping  and  handling  the  whole  is  thus  afforded. 

[72] 


WORK   IN   THIN  METAL 


lish  work  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  the  stu- 
dent will  readily  see  how  much  the  design  loses  in 
being  transferred  from  the  die  or  intaglio  to  the  not 
perfectly  ductile  material  upon  which  it  has  been 
impressed.  This  form  of  the  sculptor's  art  is, 
therefore,  best  treated  in  connection  with  the  cut- 
ting of  the  intaglio  original  (see  Chapter  XXI). 

The  term  "modelling  "  may  with  propriety  be 
extended  to  cover  the  treatment  of  hard  material 
which  is  in  sheets  so  thin  that  it  can  be  impressed 
easily,  cut  easily,  and  still  more  easily  bent  or 
rolled.  It  is  more  common,  however,  to  use  the 
word  "embossing"  for  all  work  in  thin  plates  of 
metal.  When  the  work  is  hammered  up  from 
within,  it  is  usually  necessary  to  work  also  upon 
the  outer  surface,  that  is  to  say,  upon  the  front, 
and  this  is  done  with  the  chasing  tool  (see 
Chapter  X).  This,  however,  has  to  do  merely  with 
the  finishing  of  the  work  ;  the  first  pattern  in  relief 
having  been  produced  by  good  hard  hammering 
from  the  wrong  side.  In  doing  such  work  as 
this  it  is  evident  that  the  artist  must  constantly 
watch  the  right  side;  and  in  fact,  as  is  shown  in 
Chapter  X,  it  is  in  that  way  that  embossing  is 
commonly  done,  the  plate  of  metal  being  held 
down  with  some  firmness  against  the  point  of  the 
hammer,  which  constantly  comes  back  to  it  in 
rapid  little  blows.  Of  course  the  artist  may  be 
following  more  or  less  closely  a  model  which  he 
has  made  before,  but  in  this  case  he  as  an  embosser 

[  73  ] 


MODELLING    AND  EMBOSSING 


is  merely  following  his  own  preceding  work  as  a 
modeller  and  goes  through  two  technical  processes 
instead  of  one.  Fig.  23  shows  an  etui  or  case  for 
scissors,  bodkin,  and  the  like,  made  of  thin  plates 

of  gold  hammered  into  re- 
lief from  the  wrong  side 
and  then  chased  upon  the 
right  side.  This  piece  is 
in  high  relief.  Fig.  24 
shows  a  patch-box  in 
which  the  relief  is  very 
low,  hardly  greater  than 
that  upon  a  coin,  but  pro- 
duced in  the  same  manner 
as  that  shown  in  Fig.  23. 

There  is  still  another 
kind  of  embossing  which 
should  be  mentioned  for  a 
Fig.  23.    Etui,  Repousse  work  moment.    In  the  Middle 

in  gold,  French,  eighteenth        Ages  an(J    at  a  Jater  t[me 

century 

it  was  not  uncommon  to 
carve  in  hard  wood  in  low  relief,  and  then  to 
force  very  thin  metal  plates,  as  of  silver,  down 
upon  this  carving,  the  chasing  tool  or  some 
equivalent  being  used  to  force  the  pliable  metal 
into  the  recesses  of  the  pattern.  This  once  done, 
the  thin  metal  plate  could  be  withdrawn  from  the 
wooden  background,  which,  with  a  little  repair, 
would  serve  for  a  second  undertaking  of  the  same 
kind.    The  thin  metal  would  be  filled  from  within 

[74] 


WO  UK   IN   THIN  METAL 


with  pitch  or  plaster  or  with  some  other  material 
easy  to  liquefy,  and  which  would  then  solidify 
itself.  The  best  of  all  such  substances  is  probably 
sulphur,  as  that  has  the  faculty  of  cooling  without 
shrinking  notably,  the 
hard  mass  occupying 
very  nearly  the  whole 
space  previously  occu- 
pied by  the  sulphur 
when  melted. 

The  above  described 
process  depends  upon 
carving  in  relief,  and 
is  therefore  not  em- 
bossing in  a  strict 
sense.     In  like  man-   F:°-  2+-    Patch  box'  Repouss<f  work 

in  gold,  French,  eighteenth  century 

ner  the  stamping  of  a 

raised  or  an  incised  pattern,  by  means  of  a  die 
made  of  a  material  harder  than  the  material  to 
be  impressed,  is  not  strictly  modelling.  It  is  in- 
different whether  the  die  is  of  hardened  steel 
and  the  impression  to  be  made  is  in  tolerably 
hard  metal,  or  the  die  is  of  copper  or  bronze  and 
the  material  horn  or  shell  or  wood,  softened  by 
heat,  perhaps  by  immersion  in  boiling  water. 
In  either  case  the  chief  part  of  the  art-process 
is  in  the  preparation  of  the  die. 


[75] 


Chapter  Five 


PAINTING1 

IF  we  were  considering  modern  ways  of 
artistic  work,  the  work  of  the  studio  alone, 
the  consideration  of  drawing  would  precede 
that  of  painting  ;  for  the  use  of  the  outline 
and  of  the  general  lay-out  of  light  and  shade  by 
some  simple  and  monochromatic  process,  like 
that  which  we  call  drawing,  always  precedes  the 
application  of  color.  It  is  different,  however, 
now  that  we  are  considering  the  whole  body  of 
technical  work  with  paint,  for  with  this,  in  all 
ages  alike,  it  is  not  true  that  drawing  always  or 
generally  precedes  painting.  If,  limiting  our  in- 
quiry to  artistic  work,  we  consider  the  painting 
of  the  walls  and  sculptures  of  antiquity  or  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  or  if,  in  modern  times,  we  consider 
the  art  in  a  larger  sense  than  the  making  of  colored 

1  Painting  :  the  act  of  applying  paint,  which  is  usually  finely  ground 
coloring  matter  mixed  with  some  liquid,  and  some  oily  or  viscid 
medium,  often  called  the  vehicle.  It  is  also  the  work  so  done,  as 
in  the  phrase,  "  The  painting  seems  solid  and  well  done."  By  extension, 
the  term  includes  gilding  and  the  application  of  bronze  powder  and  the 
like.  Moreover  in  this  chapter,  and  again  in  Chapter  XXV,  it  is  neces- 
sarv  to  include  in  Painting  the  application  of  pigments  as  is  done  in 
pastel  work  and  by  means  cf  Raffaelli's  "  paint  sticks  "  or  solid  oil  color. 

[76] 


OFTEN    NEEDS    MECHANICAL    SKILL  ONLY 


patterns  or  representative  figure  work, 
we    shall   rind  much  painting 
done  by  men  certainly  unable 
to  draw,   in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  that  word.  In 
the    first   place,  large 
plain  surfaces  of  color 
are    put    on,   as  by 
house-painters  work- 
ing with  distem-  $H 
per,1  calcimine,  or 
oil  paint,  with  only  4 
such  boundaries  and 
limitations  as  the 
surface  itself  affords  ; 
as  when  the  Pom- 
peian  of    the  first 
century  a.  d.  painted 
the  rectangular 
blocks  or  panels  of 
his  wall,  or  when, 
to  take  the  simplest 
modern  case,  a  pain- 
ter is    at  work  on 
your  drawing-room 
ceiling.      He  puts 
one  color  on  your 
panels  and  two  or 
three   different  colors 


Fig.  25.  Stone  Screen,  Aldenham 
Church,  Herts,  England,  painted  in 
bright  red,  bright  green,  dark  blue 
and  white,  with  touches  of  gilding, 
about  1480 

( Blackburne's  "  Sketches  ") 

on  the   different  mould- 


1  Distemper,   Tempera,  Calcimine  :  see  Distemper,  Calcimine,  below. 

[77  ] 


P  A I  N  T I  N  G 


ings  which  make  up  the  ridges  or  bars  which 
separate  the  panels.  Even  it  he  goes  so  much 
farther  in  his  work  as  to  draw  a  line  or  two  or 
three  lines  or  narrow  bands  of  color  close  to  and 
parallel  to  the  mouldings,  he  can  hardly  be  said 
to  use  "  drawing  "  in  any  strict  sense,  as  he  merely 
guides  his  inartistic  hand  by  a  straight-edge.  Fig. 
25  shows,  in  mechanical  drawing,  in  elevation, 
a  piece  of  English  Gothic  window  tracery  with  the 
mouldings  of  the  stone  frame  ;  and  the  diagonal 
striping  in  color  of  the  beads,  or  rounded  mould- 
ings. The  painting  is  in  strong  primary  colors  : 
but  our  only  business  here  is  to  note  that  the 
painter  has  no  need  of  more  skill,  apart  from  his 
power  of  laying  a  flat  coat  of  paint,  than  merely 
so  much  as  will  enable  him  to  make  those  stripes 
equal  in  width,  red  and  yellowish  white  alternately. 
He  has  also  to  keep  his  blue  within  the  limits  of 
the  moulding  which  is  intended  to  receive  that 
color ;  but  this  is  a  part  of  his  trade-knowledge 
as  a  painter.  Suppose  that  he  goes  a  step  farther 
and  applies  a  pattern  by  means  of  the  stencil 
plate1  (see  Chapter  XX),  he  is  still  not  likely  to 

1  Stencil  Plate  :  a  piece  of  thin  metal  or  of  pasteboard,  stout  paper,  or 
the  like,  through  which  is  cut  a  pattern  which  when  laid  upon  the 
surface  to  be  decorated  enables  the  workman  to  repeat  that  pattern  over 
and  over  again  bv  means  of  a  dabbing  brush  without  his  having  more 
knowledge  or  skill  than  enough  to  keep  the  repetitions  of  the  pattern  in  a 
line  and  at  proper  distances  from  one  another.  Bv  means  of  two  or 
three  different  patterns,  used  in  alternation,  a  stencilled  background  may 
be  verv  elaborate,  and  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  pattern  so  put  on 
the  wall  from  being  very  much  improved  by  free-hand  painting.  This 

[78  ] 

1 


FLAT   COLOR   ON   ARCHITECTURAL  FORMS 


use  any  knowledge  of  drawing  at  all.  All  he  has 
to  do  is  to  rule  a  certain  number  of  straight  lines 
across  his  panel  and  lay  off  certain  distances  upon 
them.  In  doing  this  he  is  not  more  necessarily 
a  draughtsman  than  the  captain  of  a  fishing-smack 
is  an  astronomer  because  he  uses  a  sextant  and 
knows  how  to  refer  to  a  printed  table.  More- 
over, it  is  true  that  a  great  deal  of  effective  dec- 
oration is  obtainable  in  such  ways,  by  means  of 
simply  applied  painting  without  any  more  than 
mere  workingman's  skill,  the  knowledge  of  his 
trade,  on  the  part  of  the  painter. 

We  have  but  little  knowledge  of  mediaeval 
practice  in  the  way  of  the  painting  of  architecture, 
but  from  the  few  examples  which  remain,  it  is 
evident  that  a  trade  existed,  with  its  trade  secrets 
and  traditions,  acting  within  which  a  skilled  work- 
man would  paint  a  sculptured  doorway  or  porch 
or  a  stone  altar  according  to  a  recognized  system 
as  interpreted  for  the  occasion  by  the  master 
workman.  The  mouldings  would  be  picked  out 
in  two  or  three  strong,  pure  colors,  the  canopies 
of  the  little  niches  in  the  same  or  in  other  colors 
as  especially  directed,  and  the  more  usual  traditions 
would  hold  in  the  matter  of  painting  the  armor 
blue,  the  faces  of  a  peculiar  red,  the  draperies  in 
this  and  in  other  colors  with  borders  and  spotty 
patterns,  as  described  in  Chapter  XXIV. 

superadded  to  the  set  and  uniform  stencil  pattern  may  give  it  vivacity  and 
charm  in  many  different  ways, 

[79] 


P  A I  X  T  I  X  G 


The  same  use  of  painting  without  drawing  is 
seen  in  ceramic  art  where,  as  in  some  modern 


Fig.  26.     Indian  or  Persian  vase  with  thick  light  blue 
glaze,  eleventh  or  twelfth  century,  a.  d. 

(Marquand  Collection,  1903) 

terra  cotta  work,  whole  surfaces  are  covered  with 
a  gray,  dull  red,  or  pale  blue  tinge,  fired  with  the 
piece  itself;  and  also  in  the  "single  color  "  vases 
of  Chinese  porcelain  so  much  admired  by  collec- 
tors.    Fig.  26  is  an  Indo-Persian  vase  of  a  single 

[  80] 


FLAT   COLOR   ON   CERAMIC  WARE 


color,  a  grayish-green,  which  depends  for  its 
effect  upon  its  relief  patterns  :  but  it  will  be  read- 
ily understood  that  the  colored  glaze,  or  enamel, 
is  thinner  at  the  projecting  edges,  which  therefore 
seem  light  in  color,  and  much  darker  in  the 
hollows.  Here  is  a  kind  of  color-gradation  got 
by  a  uniform  hue  laid  upon  a  changing  surface. 
In  the  splashed  pieces  also  (see  Chapter  VIII) 
the  color  is  allowed  to  run  down  the  rounded 
surface  of  the  finished  vase,  as  if  its  trickling  had 
stopped  only  when  the  heat  of  the  furnace  came 
to  check  it ;  and  is  not  restrained  by  a  fixed  out- 
line determined  in  advance.  This  also  requires 
no  skill  of  the  draughtsman,  but  only  that  skill  of 
the  practised  potter  which  is  in  knowing  just  how 
thick  to  make  the  pigment  and  how  long  to  let 
it  stand  before  and  during  the  exposure  to  heat  ; 
for  painting  of  this  kind  is  very  largely  affected 
by  the  heat  of  the  furnace  itself. 

In  all  such  work  as  we  have  been  considering, 
the  preparation  of  the  color  is  the  simple  grind- 
ing of  it  into  fine  powder,  and  the  mixing  of  it 
in  a  pot  or  upon  a  slab  with  such  a  vehicle  as 
may  be  chosen.  Throughout  the  later  Middle 
Ages  a  sticky  and  glutinous  material  was  used,  as 
in  distemper,1  which  we  sometimes  call  tempera. 
The  modern  equivalent  of  this  is  calcimine,  or 

1  Distemper :  painting  with  a  sticky  medium,  or  vehicle,  as  white 
of  egg  or  the  juice  of  fruits,  but  always  something  soluble  in  water,  or 
capable  of  being  thinned  out  with  water. 

vol.  i  —  6 


PAINTING 


kalsomine,1  that  which  we  commonly  use  for  our 
walls  and  ceilings  when  but  slight  expense  is  to 
be  incurred.  In  the  ancient  work,  however,  this 
method  of  painting  was  carried  into  the  most 
elaborate  mural  pictures.  Figure  subjects  with 
figures  even  larger  than  life  were  painted  in  dis- 
temper, this  being,  indeed,  the  only  method  used 
for  work  upon  hard,  smooth,  and  comparatively 
non-absorbent  surfaces.  Examples  of  this  are 
given  in  connection  with  Chapter  XXV  on  artistic 
painting. 

For  painting  upon  plaster,  however,  fresco  2  was 
the  common  method  employed  in  the  fourteenth 
and  following  centuries,  but  the  introduction  of 
this  method,  as  of  the  plastered  walls  to  which 
it  was  applicable,  is  not  known  to  date  from  a 
very  early  period.  If  the  people  of  classical  anti- 
quity painted  in  what  we  now  call  fresco  it  is 
probable  that  the  surfaces  received  an  after  finish 
of  a  different  sort,  as  no  existing  work  in  Pompeii 


1  Calcimine  :  literally,  painting  done  with  chalk  ;  commonly  a  mix- 
ture of  chalk  colored  with  the  pigment,  glue,  and  water.  Only  one 
coat  can  be  applied  and  it  is  ruined  by  dampness. 

2  Fresco  :  from  the  Italian  word  meaning  damp  or  cool.  A  pro- 
cess of  painting  with  very  liquid  water  color  upon  damp  plaster.  Each 
day  the  plasterer  prepares  only  as  much  of  his  ground  as  the  painter  can 
probably  finish  during  the  hours  of  the  day  ;  the  remainder  is  then  cut 
off  and  the  new  plastering  put  up  with  a  very  visible  line  of  demarcation. 
These  scars  or  changes  of  surface  are  more  or  less  disguised  by  painting 
in  drv  color,  and  the  contradictory  term  fresco-secco,  or  dry  fresco, 
was  adopted  to  signify  that  kind  of  painting,  which  is  in  essence  the 
same  thing  as  calcimine  painting. 

[82] 


QUALITIES 


OF  WORK 


IN 


F  R  E  S  C  O 


or  Rome  seems  quite  to  have  had  the  same  finish 
as  the  fresco  of  the  sixteenth  century  ;  although 
the  Roman  plastering  was  very  superior  to  mediae- 
val or  modern  work.  As  every  kind  of  painting 
has  its  peculiar  characteristic,  so  the  aspect  of 
fresco  is  nearly  always  pale,  cool,  and  tending  to 
high  lights.  It  is  far  from  heing  bad  for  the 
colorist ;  for  he,  even  if  accustomed  to  the  deeper 
glow  of  oil-painting,  has  merely  to  rearrange  his 
system  of  color  and  abandon  altogether  sombre 
effects  and  strong  contrasts  ;  losing  nothing  essen- 
tial by  doing  so  ;  as  is  proved  by  the  wonderful 
ceiling  of  Michelangelo  in  the  Sistine  Chapel  of 
the  Vatican,  where  coloring  of  a  very  marked 
excellence  is  combined  with  noble  composition 
and  the  most  masterly  and  strenuous  drawing  of 
the  modern  world.  Still,  however,  the  men  whom 
we  look  upon  as  essentially  colorists, — the  great 
Venetians  and  Correggio  ;  and,  for  sombre  and 
less  brilliant  effects,  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez,  — 
as  well  as  such  moderns  as  Eugene  Delacroix  and 
J.  F.  Millet,  would  hardly  have  been  satisfied  if 
they  had  been  compelled  to  take  to  fresco  for 
their  only  medium.  In  the  opinion  of  many, 
fresco  painting  remains  the  one  perfectly  satisfac- 
tory method  of  adorning  the  interior  surfaces  of 
walls,  and  the  flat  or  vaulted  ceiling  which  ac- 
companies them.  It  tends  rather  toward  the  use 
of  life-size  or  colossal  figures  and  hardly  lends 
itself  to  the  elaboration  of  patterns  unless  they  are 

[  83  ] 


P  A I N  T I  N  G 


very  simple  in  character,  —  this  being,  however, 
rather  a  natural  result  of  the  swift  and  brilliant 
work,  requisite  where  all  must  be  done  before  the 
plaster  dries,  than  a  necessity  resulting  from  the 
pigments  used. 

Oil  painting1  was  introduced  into  Italy  appar- 
ently from  the  Low  Countries,  and  at  a  time  nearly 
contemporaneous  with  the  work  of  the  earlier 
Venetians  ;  Verazzano  and  others  divide  in  ordinary 
tradition  the  honor  of  its  introduction  into  Italy. 
Its  invention  is  often  ascribed  to  one  of  the  two 
brothers  Van  Eyck,  Jan  and  Hubert.  In  fact,  it 
was  not  the  painting  in  oil  that  was  discovered 
then.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  oil  had  been 
often  tried  as  a  medium  ;  the  invention  consisted 
in  the  discovery  of  a  good  drier  2  without  which 
oil  painting  would  remain  sticky,  and  would 
gather  dust  and  larger  impurities,  besides  being  in 
constant  danger  of  injury  from  the  slightest  touches. 
Oil  painting  is  discussed  somewhat  at  length  in 
Chapter  XXV,  where  the  processes  of  the  modern 
studio  are  described.     The  introduction  of  canvas 

1  Oil  Painting:  Painting  which  is  done  with  oil  as  a  vehicle,  the  dry 
color  being  mixed  with  it ;  the  peculiarity  of  the  process  is  that  an  artifi- 
cial drier  must  be  used  to  facilitate  the  work,  as  oil  alone  dries  with  ex- 
treme slowness.     See  the  next  note  and  Chapter  XXV. 

2  Drier :  a  material  which  when  mixed  with  an  oil  enables  a 
painting  in  oil  to  dry  rapidly.  The  modern  drier  is  almost  always 
turpentine.  This  when  used  in  great  quantity  is  apt  to  injure  the 
character  of  the  work  and  cause  it  to  crack  before  the  lapse  of  many 
years,  the  surface  then  resembling  a  "  crackled  "  piece  of  earthenware 
or  porcelain. 

[84] 


QUALITIES 


OF  OIL 


PAINTING 


as  the  surface  upon  which  the  painter  works  is 
closely  connected  with  the  introduction  or  oil 
painting.  It  seems  to  have  been  remarked  at 
once  by  the  early  workers  in  the  new  material 
that  a  piece  of  textile  fabric  of  any  kind,  it 
strained  tight,  would  need  only  to  have  its  pores 
closed  by  a  preliminary  coat  of  some  simple  paint, 
to  prepare  it  well  for  the  most  elaborate  work  ; 
and  that  weight  would  be  saved  thus,  and  also 
transportation  facilitated,  for  the  canvas  can  be 
rolled  with  the  painted  side  out  and  so  carried  to 
any  distance.  The  Punch  woodcut  of  the  young 
lady  who  is  terrified  at  her  husband's  extravagance 
in  using  a  clean  pocket-handkerchief  for  his  pict- 
ure illustrates  well  enough  the  haphazard  methods 
which  are  often  in  use,  but  many  painters  seek  to 
obtain  an  effect  which  is  only  possible  with  canvas 
of  a  peculiar  texture.  The  handkerchief  would 
hardly  be  strong  enough  for  large  work,  but  it 
would  suffice  for  an  oil  painting  eighteen  inches 
long.  There  is  this  advantage,  however,  in  oil 
painting,  that  the  same  medium  very  slightly  mod- 
ified does  equally  well  for  painting  on  prepared 
surfaces  of  paper  board  (millboard)  and  of  wood 
(panel,  as  it  is  called  when  especially  prepared), 
even  when  that  wood  is  part  of  a  dado,  a  door,  or  a 
piece  of  furniture,  as  upon  canvas.  This  facility  in 
working  on  different  surfaces  was  of  great  utilitv 
during  the  reigns  of  Louis  XIV,  Louis  XV,  and 
Louis  XVI,  when  the  elaborate  interiors  of  the 

C85] 


PAIN  T I N G 


so-called  rococo  1  style  were  in  process  of  decora- 
tion. Thus,  Boucher,  or  any  one  of  his  con- 
temporaries and  followers  could  paint  on  canvas 
the  pictures  to  be  inserted  in  the  walls  surrounded 
by  the  carved  and  gilded  woodwork  of  the  panel- 
ling, and  on  wood  the  equally  elaborate  paintings 
of  the  large  cove  between  wall  and  ceiling  ;  nor 
could  any  observer  detect  a  difference  in  the  tone 
of  the  work  between  the  painting  on  the  one  and 
on  the  other  surface. 

In  modern  times,  fresco  being  very  nearly  un- 
known to  our  modern  workmen,  and  careless 
habits  of  building  having  made  it  extremely  dif- 
ficult to  procure  safe  plastered  walls  upon  which 
to  paint,  the  artists  employed  upon  mural  work 
have  devised  a  plan  of  painting  upon  canvas  which 
is  afterwards  applied  to  the  wall  by  some  adhesive 
paste,  —  a  process  called  maroujiage.  The  paint- 
ings in  the  important  Parisian  interiors  are  usually 
executed  in  this  way.  The  scheme  is  not,  how- 
ever, applicable  to  surfaces  of  double  curvature,  as 
the  interior  of  cupolas,  and  the  like,  nor  even 
without  great  difficulty  to  such  coves  as  those  of 
the  eighteenth  century. 


1  Rococo  :  that  style  which  began  toward  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century  in  western  Europe.  Its  characteristic  manifestations  are  in 
decoration  of  interiors,  where  constructional  forms  are  so  modified  as  to 
adapt  themselves  to  flowing  scroll-work  with  shells  and  imitation  of 
water-worn  rocks.  Figs.  23  and  24  are  specimens  of  rococo  design  in 
a  small  object. 

[  86  ] 


LACQUER    WORK    AND   VARNISH  WORK 


There  is  also  to  be  mentioned  the  extremely 
curious,  and  for  decorative  artists,  suggestive  work 
of  the  Oriental  nations  in  what  is  called  lacquer :  1 
of  this,  much  the  finest  was  made  in  Japan  during 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  with  per- 
haps an  increase  in  skilled  manipulation  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  Fig.  27  gives  a  gold  lacquer 
box  in  which  the  patterns  of  leafage  in  the  three 
divisions  at  the  right  are  seen  to  be  in  decided 
relief,  the  viscous  paint  being  allowed  to  model 
itself  in  this  way,  while  the  one  division  at  the 
left  has  the  change  of  color  in  the  varnished  sur- 
face without  relief,  the  whole  being  polished  down 
as  smooth  as  a  mirror.  The  extreme  beauty  of 
the  surfaces,  polished,  or  slightly  roughened,  and 
with  ornamental  and  representative  paintings  and 
low  reliefs  in  color  and  gold,  caused  the  frequent 
use  of  large  Eastern  panels  in  French  furniture  of 
the  eighteenth    century  ;   the   celebrated  Vernis 

1  Lacquer  :  properly  a  material  made  of  lac,  which  is  an  insect  deposit 
brought  from  the  East  Indies.  The  term  includes,  however,  work  which 
has  been  thought  by  the  hasty  observer  to  resemble  that  in  actual  lac. 
The  lacquered  work  of  northern  India  may  indeed  be  worked  in  part 
with  lac  as  its  medium,  though  there  seems  uncertainty  about  this.  The 
magnificent  lacquer  work  of  Japan  is,  however,  of  totally  different  mate- 
rial. Its  basis,  the  viscous  medium  itself,  is  the  sap  of  the  urishi,  a 
variety  of  the  sumach  tree,  rus  vernicifera.  The  color,  the  powdered 
gold,,  etc.,  is  mixed  with  this  material,  and  is  applied  by  a  peculiar  brush 
with  a  dexterity  only  to  be  gained  by  long  years  of  practice,  and  per- 
haps hardly  to  be  gained  except  by  one  who  inherits  the  knack.  The 
extraordinary  effects  of  translucency  and  the  building  up  of  reliefs  in  finely 
powdered  gold,  the  insertion  of  scraps  of  gold  leaf,  silver  leaf,  mother- 
of-pearl,  and  the  like,  are  all  details  of  a  very  refined  decorative  industry. 

[87] 


PAINTING 


Martin  1  was  an  attempted  imitation  which,  how- 
ever, soon  broke  away  and  followed  an  evolution 
of  its  own.  Even  where  such  lacquer  is  not  used, 
or  an  imitation  of  it,  painting  on  a  small  scale 


Fig.   27.     Gold  lacquer  box,  six  inches  across,  Japan, 
seventeenth  century,  a.  d. 

applied  to  the  wood,  or  to  the  paper  or  cloth, 
glued  to  the  outside  of  a  box  or  the  like,  may  be 
sufficiently  permanent  to  serve  a  decorative  purpose. 
Thus,  it  was  one  of  the  interesting  minor  indus- 
tries in  England  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 

1  Verms  Martin :  an  application  of  copal  varnish  introduced  in 
France  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  centurv.  Many  different 
workmen  in  France,  and  elsewhere  in  Europe,  produced  beautiful  furni- 
ture and  utensils  whose  chief  adornment  was  in  the  varnish-painting.  The 
four  brothers  Martin  became  most  celebrated,  and  the  work  especially 
identified  with  them  is  that  in  which  a  gilded  ground  gives  relief  to 
delicately  painted  figures. 

[88] 


28.     Arms  of  the  Visconti  of  Milan,  painted  on  door  of  Cabinet 
in  Sacristy,  Church  of  Santa  Maria  delle  Grazie,  Milan 

(From  Gruner's  4t  Lo  ScafFale  ") 


POLYCHROMY    IN    TOTTERY  AND  GLASS 


centuries  to  paint  little  wooden  plates  and  dishes 
intended  to  be  used  for  fruit,  this  painting  being 
altogether  decorative  in  purpose,  smooth,  hard,  and 
glossy,  and  bearing  very  considerable  wear  without 
serious  injury.  Table  tops  were  painted  in  the 
same  way ;  and  it  is  notable  that  the  elaborate 
inlay  of  which  mention  is  made  in  Chapter  XVII 
was  often  imitated  in  Italy  with  the  paint-brush. 
The  splendid  presses  and  cabinets  in  the  famous 
church  at  Milan,  Santa  Maria  delle  Grazie,  which 
seem  to  be  all  in  inlay  of  wood,  are  in  reality 
painted  in  exact  imitation  of  the  inlaid  patterns 
of  the  time  (see  Fig.  28).  Painting  on  the  pages 
of  books,  vellum,  or  paper,  is  usually  in  water- 
color  with  a  sticky  medium  (see  Chapter  XXII) 
such  as  the  gum  in  use  by  modern  manufacturers 
of  artists'  pigments.  Painting  on  the  surface  of 
pottery  whether  applied  to  the  paste  itself  after  a 
first  or  a  second  firing,  or  to  the  glaze,  is  always  vit- 
rifiable  ;  that  is,  is  capable  of  being  changed  by  heat 
into  a  very  permanent  and  hard  application  to  the 
surface,  or  else  fixed  upon  the  absorbent  surface  of 
the  vessel  in  a  wholly  inseparable  way.  In  painting 
upon  glass  also  a  color  is  used  which  can  be  fixed 
by  heat ;  but  a  distinction  must  be  made  between 
the  opaque  pigment  described  in  the  next  paragraph 
and  enamel  colors  (see  Chapter  IX).  In  such  work 
the  artist  has  to  anticipate  a  great  change  in  the  hue 
of  his  pigments;  thus  a  brilliant  yellow  comes,  after 
firing,  from  a  muddy  brown  paint  of  no  beauty. 

[89] 


PAINTING 

Some  painting  is  used  for  concealing  a  surface 
in  part  and  producing  a  figure  or  pattern  of  the 
original  surface  with  a  background  made  by  the 
new  application.  A  simple  instance  of  this  is  in 
the  illumination  of  manuscripts  (see  Chapters 
XXII  and  XXV)  ;  where  a  piece  of  leaf  gold  is 
glued  to  the  page,  and  opaque  color  is  worked 
upon  the  gold  so  that  an  initial  letter  will  be  left 
exposed,  burnished  gold  upon  a  ground  of  color. 
The  most  striking  instance  of  this  painting-out  is 
where  a  light  of  glass  prepared  for  a  decorative 
window  is  painted  upon  until  all  that  is  left  trans- 
lucent is  the  hand  or  head  or  part  of  costume 
which  is  desired  to  be  of  the  color  of  the  piece  of 
glass ;  the  painting  having  formed  a  completely 
opaque  background  for  the  translucent  design. 


[90] 


Chapter  Six 


STAINING  AND  DYEING1 

THIS  mechanical  process  is  generally 
artistic  in  purpose,  and  must  have 
been  so  at  all  epochs  ;  but  in  many 
instances  is  non-artistic  in  the  actual 
work.  Threads,  of  which  textile  fabrics  are  to 
be  made  by  the  process  of  weaving  (see  Chapter 
XII),  and  the  completed  textile  itself,  may  equally 
well  be  dyed ;  but  the  dyeing  of  the  threads  is 
generally  the  work  of  the  mechanic,  who  learns, 
indeed,  what  dyes  may  be  combined  and  in  what 
proportions,  and  perhaps  what  dyes  are  brilliant  or 
permanent,  but  who  is  little  of  an  artist,  confining 
his  attention,  even  under  the  most  favorable  cir- 
cumstances, to  obtaining  a  more  brilliant  hue  or  a 
more  permanent  color  than  others  may  have  done  ; 
and  this  in  one  skein  of  thread  or  of  unspun  fibre 
at  a  time,  without  thought  of  combinations  of 
hue.     Dyeing  of  the  whole  piece  is  obviously  no 

1  Staining  —  Dyeing  :  the  process  of"  coloring  any  material  by  means 
of  impregnating  its  whole  substance  for  at  least  a  certain  depth  below  the 
surface  with  some  liquid,  which  either  changes  the  chemical  nature  of 
the  solid  substance,  or  else  simply  impregnates  the  whole,  soaking  in 
and  leaving  its  color  behind  it  as  it  dries. 

[91  ] 


STAINING   AND  DYEING 


further  artistic  than  is  the  choosing  of  one  single 
hue,  — always  excepting  work  by  tying  and  the 
like,  as  shown  below.  Staining  is  of  the  same 
nature  as  dyeing,  inasmuch  as  large  pieces  of 
wood,  boards  or  shingles,  are  generally  colored  at 
one  process,  which  gives  them  a  flat  tint,  except 
as  varied  by  the  natural  grain  of  the  wood,  one 
part  taking  the  color  more  deeplv  than  another 
part,  In  this  sense,  these  kindred  mechanical 
arts  are  mere  preparations  tor  a  later  manipulation 
which  may  have  more  artistic  significance  and  a 
greater  artistic  result. 

The  workman  who  colors  a  large  number  of 
shingles  with  a  green  dye  may  have  mixed  or 
prepared  the  dye  himself,  but  generally  under 
other  instruction.  The  workmen  who  dye  the 
woollen  threads  in  the  factory  of  the  Gobelins  are 
acting  under  the  direct  instructions  ot  chemists 
and  with  the  direct  assistance  ot  those  chemists. 
Even  the  dyers  of  silk  thread  in  China,  and  of 
goat's-hair  in  northern  Persia  cannot  be  said  to 
be  pursuing  a  fine  or  decorative  art,  but  rather 
to  be  preparing  for  the  future  work  of  decora- 
tive artists.  In  this  connection,  compare  Chapter 
XXVII,  where  there  is  consideration  of  other 
non-manual  arts  of  general  production,  and  of 
combinations  of  different  workmen  and  of  their 
different  work. 

There  are,  however,  special  manual  arts  ot 
adornment  which  depend  upon  staining  and  dyeing. 

[  r-  ] 


DECORATION    OF   HARD  MATERIALS 


Thus,  the  staining  of  ivory  by  the  people  of  the 
extreme  East  is  carried  to  great  refinement,  and 
upon  it  is  based  a  very  beautiful  decorative  art. 
Carved  figures  will  be  stained  in  certain  parts  ; 
and  with  this  partial  changing  of  the  color  may 
be  combined  the  inlay  of  other  materials  and  the 
painting,  upon  the  surface  of  the  ivory,  of  flowers 
or  conventional  patterns  in  some  form  of  what 
we  call  lacquer  (see  Chapters  V  and  XXV).  In 
certain  cases  the  whole  piece  of  ivory  is  stained 
after  it  is  carved,  and  note  is  taken  of  those  grada- 
tions of  color  which  are  caused  by  the  varying 
compactness  and  the  various  grain  of  the  ivory. 
Use  is  made  of  these  accidental  gradations  in  the 
color  effect  of  the  whole  piece,  including  the 
addition  of  inlays  or  lacquer  painting.  It  appears 
also  that  a  previous  application  to  parts  of  the 
surface  of  a  chemical  of  some  sort  will  modify 
the  subsequent  dye,  and  that  this  device  also  is 
employed  by  the  Chinese  and  Japanese.  Thus 
there  will  be  carved  out  of  a  single  piece  of  ivory 
a  leaf,  as  of  a  water  lily,  with  a  frog  upon  it,  and 
the  staining  of  the  whole  results  in  giving  a  bluer 
green  to  the  leaf  and  a  more  yellow  green  to  the 
frog  ;  these  colors  being  also  modified  in  the  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  leaf  and  of  the  creature  by  the 
more  or  less  absorbent  qualities  of  the  ivory. 

Large  pieces  of  colored  inlay  are  made,  in 
which  the  staining  of  the  different  materials  plays 
a  great  part.     Thus  a  panel  two  feet  high  will  be 

[93  ] 


STAINING   AND  DYEING 


composed,  in  the  first  place,  of  wood,  the  grain  of 
which  has  been  picked  out  in  a  curious  way,  so 
that  the  softer  parts  are  removed  and  the  harder 
and  fibrous  lines  of  the  grain  remain  in  relief. 
This  whole  piece  of  material  is  then  stained  with 
a  subdued  color,  warm  brown  or  slate  gray  ;  and 
then  begins  the  application  to  it  of  the  decorative 
design  proposed.  Parts  will  be  simply  painted 
with  lacquer  more  or  less  raised  from  the  sur- 
face. Parts  again  will  be  composed  of  stained 
ivory  in  several  different  colors  or  hues ;  other 
parts  again  in  mother-of-pearl,  pottery,  and  natural 
colored  stones, — a  very  elaborate  result  being 
reached  often ;  but  the  basis  of  it  all  being  the 
stained  wood  and  stained  bone  or  ivory,  used  for 
much  more  than  half  of  the  surface.  Some  of 
these  panels  are  of  splendid  decorative  effect  ; 
and  the  artificiallv  colored  materials  are  at  least 
as  important  in  these  designs  as  the  unaltered 
horn,  shell,  ceramic  ware,  and  mother-of-pearl. 
In  the  work  of  the  Western  nations  it  does  not 
appear  that  staining  is  used  very  artistically  ;  its 
limits  being  perhaps  in  the  coloring  of  the  ex- 
terior wood-work  of  modern  country  houses. 

The  staining  of  glass  is  of  one  nature  only,  so 
far  as  practical  work  is  concerned.  The  Silver 
Stain,  as  it  is  called,  gives  a  beautiful  yellow.  It 
is  fixed  to  the  glass  by  firing,  but  it  differs  from 
enamel  (see  Chapter  IX)  because  it  becomes  com- 
pletely  incorporated   in   the  glass,   changing  its 

[94] 


COLORING  OF  GLASS  AND  OF  TLX  TILES 


color  for  a  certain  depth  below  the  surface  to 
which  it  is  applied.  The  original  coloring  of  glass 
intended  for  decorative  windows  is,  however,  of 
the  nature  of  dyeing  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  vitreous 
substance  is  melted  with  color,  producing  what  is 
known  as  pot  metal  (see  Chapters  IX  and  XVIII). 
In  this,  as  in  the  coloring  of  thread  or  of  textiles, 
the  work,  however  delicate  and  however  much  in 
need  of  great  and  trained  skill  in  the  workman, 
is  still  not  artistic  in  itself.  It  is  the  preparation 
of  material  for  the  artist  rather  than  artistic  work. 
Only  in  the  application  of  the  silver  stain  men- 
tioned above  does  there  appear  the  work  of  the 
draughtsman  who  lays  a  definite  pigment  within 
definite  bounding  lines. 

In  the  art  of  dyeing  textiles  there  are  several 
very  ingenious  methods  practised,  the  employment 
of  which  approaches  the  practice  of  decorative 
art.  Thus  the  tying  of  thin  and  flexible  stuff  to 
exclude  the  dye  from  certain  parts  is  extremely 
curious  in  its  results.  It  is  most  often  seen  in  the 
thin  crinkled  stuffs,  such  as  crape,  which  are 
manufactured  by  means  of  strongly  twisted  threads 
(see  Chapter  XII).  By  gathering  up  small  parts 
of  the  material  and  tying  them  on  the  wrong  side, 
not  only  are  there  left  round  spots  of  the  unaltered 
color  of  the  fabric,  but  also  long  continuous  lines; 
and  even  a  pattern  of  intersecting  lines  is  produced 
in  the  same  way.  It  is  true,  however,  that  these 
processes  are  commonly  the  foundation  or  basis 

['95  ] 


STAINING    AND  DYEING 


of  more  elaborate  designs  in  the  artist's  mind 
than  the  completion  of  the  design  itself.  A  piece 
of  crape  tied  and  then  dyed  of  a  greenish  blue 
will  be  wrought  into  further  elaboration  by  the 
printing  on  the  surface  of  small  passages  of  brilliant 
color  by  means  of  wood-blocks  (see  Chapter  XXIII ); 
and  again  the  embroiderer's  needle  may  be  called 
in  to  complete  the  design  with  silk  thread  of 
many  different  colors  or  with  gold,  in  thread  or  in 
flat  strips. 

Dyeing  alone  is  the  cause  of  the  color  effect 
in  some  of  the  finest  woven  fabrics,  as  in  carpet 
weaving.  The  most  magnificent  Persian  carpets 
(see  Chapter  XII)  contain  no  gold  thread,  no 
embroidery,  no  visible  material  other  than  dyed 
fibres  of  hair  or  wool  brought  to  a  uniform 
surface  of  a  character  like  coarse  velvet ;  and  as 
the  effect  is  wholly  one  of  harmony  of  color, 
so  that  color  is  obtained  by  dyeing  alone. 

On  the  whole,  the  mechanical  processes  treated 
in  this  chapter  approach  less  closely  to  mechanical 
work  used  for  artistic  purposes  than  those  treated 
in  the  other  chapters  of  this  Division. 


[96] 


Fig.  29.  Greek  Vase  (Hydria)  17  inches  high,  about  500  b.  c.  Thin 
black  glaze,  the  large  panel  left  in  the  red  of  the  clay.  The 
main  subject  is  a  procession  of  Bacchus,  the  lower  band  is  of 
lions  and  other  beasts,  and  on  the  neck  is  painted  Herakles  and 
divinities.  The  subjects  were  drawn  by  incised  lines  in  the  clay 
before  the  painting  was  done 

(Marquand  Collection) 


Chapter  Seven 


DRAWING  1 

DRAWING  is  used  very  largely  as  a 
first  step  in  a  piece  of  artistic  work. 
Thus,  the  very  commencement  of  a 
painting  of  representative  character  is 
usually  a  drawing  made  either  with  charcoal  or 
with  a  brush  and  some  pigment  on  the  surface 
which  is  to  be  covered  with  color.  So  in  the 
vase  painting,  Fig.  29,  the  black  and  the  white 
pigment  is  not  laid  until  the  whole  subject  has 
been  drawn  on  the  clay  by  a  sharp  point,  very 
lightly  used,  making  little  scratches  which  are  not 

1  Drazuing  :  the  art  of  representing  on  a  flat  surface  objects  whether 
solid  or  flat,  together  with  the  rendering  of  ideas  by  simple  lines,  as 
in  diagrams.  Drawing,  then,  includes  everything  from  a  rapid  setting- 
down  of  a  memorandum  concerning  a  piece  of  ground  or  the  shape  of  a 
room  by  lines  which  are  obviously  not  perfectly  correct,  to  the  elabo- 
rately finished  chalk  rendering  of  a  human  head,  life-size  or  larger.  The 
distinction  between  drawing  and  painting  is  that  in  the  former  no  effect  of 
color  is  sought.  Even  if  the  drawing  is  made  in  "sanguine,"  which  is 
a  peculiar  red  chalk,  or  with  the  brush  dipped  in  any  color  however 
brilliant,  effect  of  color  has  not  been  sought,  but  either  mere  outline  or 
light  and  shade  and  consequent  representation  of  form  only.  In  one 
sense  drawing  is  a  rendering  on  the  flat  of  sculpture,  that  is,  it  is  a  transla- 
tion into  terms  of  flat  light  and  shade  of  the  shades  and  lights  seen  upon 
a  carved  or  modelled  work  of  art  or  natural  object  in  three  dimensions. 

vol.  1—7  [  97  ] 


DRAWING 


intended  to  affect  the  result.  Drawing  is  used 
also  for  a  memorandum  of  things  seen  and  things 
imagined  ;  thus,  Fig.  30  gives  a  drawing  preserved 
in  the  Louvre  Museum,  a  chalk  head,  ascribed 
to  Titian.  It  is  evident  that  no  one  can  ever 
know  whether  this  head  was  drawn  from  life  with 
somewhat  close  following  of  the  original,  or 
whether  it  was  drawn  absolutely  without  the  living 
model,  from  memory  and  imagination.  It  is 
possible,  too,  that  a  head  very  unlike  this  was 
actually  before  the  artist's  eye  as  he  made  his 
drawing ;  the  living  head  serving  well  enough 
to  guide  the  practised  hand  and  to  recall  the 
essential  truths  of  nature  to  the  trained  eye,  while 
imagination  also  did  its  work. 

Drawing,  then,  is  most  usually  in  one  color, 
and  the  work  is  most  often  done  by  one  material 
and  one  process.  Still,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  drawing  is  a  less  complex,  less  remote  or  re- 
condite art  than  painting  ;  the  reverse  is  true  in 
every  branch  of  art  and  industry  except  expres- 
sional  and  descriptive  painting,  as  shown  in 
Chapter  XXV.  Painting  which  consists  essentially 
in  putting  color  on  surfaces,  with  the  view  generally 
ol  making  them  attractive,  may  be,  as  shown  in 
Chapters  V,  XX,  and  XXV,  entirely  independent 
of  drawing;  and  moreover  it  is  a  more  obvious 
and  straightforward  thing  to  apply  paint  to  a 
previously  sculptured  wall  or  even  to  parts  of  an 
architectural  composition,  or  again  to  a  surface  of 

[98] 


P'ig.   30.     Drawing  in  black  and  white  chalk  on  gray  paper, 
attributed  to  Titian.     Louvre  Museum 


USE   OF   THE    HARD  POINT 


wood  or  plaster  with  no  more  limitations  than 
a  line  ruled  along  the  edge  of  a  board,  than  it 
is  to  take  charcoal,  or  black,  white,  or  red  chalk, 
or  even  a  hard  point,  and  draw  therewith  in  lines 
upon  a  bare  surface. 

It  is  evident  that  our  definition  of  drawing 
must  be  taken  as  including  work  with  lines  im- 
pressed or  sunk  into  the  surface,  provided  that 
these  are  so  slight  that  they  do  not  tell  forcibly 
as  creators  of  light  and  shade.  An  instance  of 
this  practice  is  given  in  Fig.  29  :  a  Grecian  vase  of 
hard-baked  clay,  in  which  material  the  forms 
have  been  indicated  by  scratching  with  a  sharp 
point,  as  a  guide  to  the  hand  of  the  painter.  So, 
if  a  carpenter  draws  with  the  point  of  his  awl  on 
a  surface  of  board,  the  instinct  of  the  practised 
artist  would  be  to  call  this  process  simply  drawing 
by  means  of  impression  ;  it  is  called  scribing  in  the 
workshops.  It  is  not  incision,  nor  engraving,  as 
that  involves  the  cutting  away  of  the  material 
(see  Chapter  XIX).  In  like  manner  the  prepara- 
tion for  a  fresco  involves  the  drawing  of  a  large 
cartoon,  as  well  as  marking  on  the  damp  plaster 
by  a  hard  point  of  some  kind  (see  Chapters  V 
and  XXV).  In  examining  ancient  frescoes,  and 
in  like  manner  the  paintings  on  the  walls  of 
Pompeii  or  newly  discovered  dwellings  in  Rome, 
outlines  are  found  slightly  depressed  below  the 
general  surface,  this  indicating  a  common  practice 
of  fixing  permanently  the  lines,  and  in  such  way 

[99] 


1)11  AWING 


that  they  can  be  easily  seen  by  the  artist  while  at 
work,  but  would  hardly  be  noticed  by  the  specta- 
tor at  a  tew  feet  of  distance.  This,  of  course,  is 
drawing  as  absolutely  as  if  the  lines  were  made  by 
crumbling  charcoal  which  can  be  brushed  away, 
or  by  lead  pencil  or  chalk  which  really  stains  the 
surface,  leaving  a  mark  which  cannot  so  easily  be 
removed. 

Engraving  has  been  mentioned  above  as  liable 
to  be  confounded  with  drawing  by  means  of  the 
hard  point ;  it  is,  however,  closely  connected  with 
drawing  and  had  better  be  considered  here  with 
reference  to  those  paragraphs  in  Chapter  III  on 
carving  where  intaglio  work  is  considered.  En- 
graving (see  Chapter  XIX)  lies  half  way  between 
sculpture  and  drawing.  When  a  silver  plate  is  to 
be  marked  with  a  simple  pattern  or  with  the 
letters  of  an  inscription,  that  is  drawing  done  by 
means  of  lines  cut  bv  sharp  tools  which  remove 
little  shavings  of  the  silver.  Even  in  the  exquisite 
Japanese  engraving  on  silver  and  bronze,  where 
the  incised  line  is  sometimes  wider,  sometimes 
narrower,  and  is  like  the  line  drawn  freely  by  the 
artist  with  chalk  or  paint-brush,  it  is  still  the  line 
which  is  considered.  As  the  draughtsman's  bound- 
ing line  is  broader  and  narrower  by  turns,  when  he 
draws  with  pencil,  chalk,  pen,  or  brush,  so  the 
engraver,  working  with  a  perfect  knowledge  of 
his  art  and  of  his  tools,  varies  the  width  and  depth 
of  his  incision  to  produce  the  desired  effect  ;  but 

[  TOO  ] 


LINES    BURNT    OR    CUT    INTO  SURFACE 


the  work  of  the  artist  is  still  the  line,  and  not  a 
rounded  or  modulated  surface  (see  Chapter  XIX). 

Still  another  artistic  process  holds  a  place  half 
way  between  drawing  and  relief-sculpture  :  namely, 
"  poker-painting  "  or  drawing  with  a  red-hot  iron 
on  a  surface,  usually  of  wood,  which  is  partly 
burned  away,  and  the  new  surface  much  scorched 
and  discolored.  A  simple  arrangement  of  lines, 
nearly  of  one  width,  as  made  by  one  movement  of 
the  hot  point,  may  be  classed  as  drawing  without 
hesitation  ;  but  a  special  instrument  is  in  use,  the 
iron  point  of  which  is  kept  at  a  very  high  tem- 
perature by  an  electrical  current,  and  with  this, 
large  parts  of  the  wood  are  burned  away,  while 
the  newly  exposed  surfaces  receive  variously  sloped 
or  rounded  forms.  The  poker  picture  done  in 
this  way  may  come  very  near  to  concavo-convex 
sculpture,  tinted  in  various  grays. 

Engraving  of  all  kinds  appears,  then,  on  exam- 
ination to  be  essentially  drawing.  Even  the  etcher 
(see  Chapter  XIX)  using  a  steel  point  to  scratch 
through  a  surface  of  varnish,  and  the  worker  with 
the  "  dry  point  "  who  uses  the  same  or  a  similar 
"  needle  "  to  scratch  the  bare  plate  of  copper,  are 
busied  with  drawing,  and  nothing  else.  The 
peculiarity  of  their  work  is  that  what  they  draw 
is  not  the  final  work  of  art,  but  a  preparation  for 
it.  They  make  a  drawing  reversed,  as  you  see 
yourself  in  a  mirror.  All  engraving  that  is  done 
for  the  future  printing  off,  as  on  paper  or  the  like, 

[  ioi  ] 


DRAWING 


is  done  in  that  way.  Indeed  the  mirror  is  used  by 
some  etchers  to  reflect  the  natural  scenes  or  objects 
which  they  study  ;  they  draw,  then,  directly  and 
without  effort  from  the  already  reversed  image  ; 
and  this  they  do  whether  they  are  making  a  pencil 
study  to  be  afterward  reproduced  on  the  copper,  or, 
as  some  enthusiasts  use  it,  work  direct  with  needle 
on  the  etching-ground,  without  preparatory  study. 

Drawing  done  tor  the  purpose  of  reproduction 
in  many  copies  has  its  chief  type  in  lithography. 
In  that  surprising  process,  a  drawing,  made  the 
reverse  way,  indeed,  but  not  scribed  or  burned 
or  scratched,  or  incised  in  any  way,  may  be  printed 
off  in  ink  an  indefinite  number  of  times.  This 
process  affords  the  best  possible  means  for  book- 
illustration,  popular  record  of  events,  caricature, 
and  appeal  to  the  many  in  the  language  which  is 
not  of  words.  Fig.  3  1  is  one  of  those  lithographic 
prints  in  which,  soon  after  the  invention  of  the 
art,  the  French  conquest  of  Algeria  was  com- 
memorated. This  is  one  of  the  finest  battle- 
pieces  in  existence  ;  and  its  complete  excellence 
goes  far  to  show  that  for  one  large  class  of  graphic 
art,  variety  of  hue  as  well  as  artistic  gradation 
of  color  is  extraneous,  and  may  even  be  undesir- 
able. The  oil  painting,  costing  its  owner  twenty 
thousand  dollars,  will  very  rarely  give  the  same 
descriptive  and  associative  impression  to  the  be- 
holder, that  this  two-franc  print  can  produce,  even 
in  far-away  lands  and  times. 

[  102  ] 


USE   OF  SOFT  AND   CRUMBLING  MATERIAL 


We  have  still  to  consider  drawing  done  for  its 
own  sake,  whether  the  artist  is  seeking  merely  his 
own  improvement  and  additional  knowledge  or 
whether  the  drawing  is  intended  for  sale.  Thus 
some  modern  portrait  painters  produce  more  chalk 
drawings  than  they  do  oil  paintings,  the  charge 
for  such  a  crayon 1  head  being  perhaps  half  or 
even  two-thirds  as  great  as  that  for  a  painting. 
Some  chalk  heads  are  worked  in  two  colors,  black 
and  red  ;  the  famous  Englishman,  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti,  produced  many  such  heads  intended  in 
the  first  place  as  studies,  but  now  much  sought  for 
by  lovers  of  art.  Such  drawings,  made  with  the 
hard  point,  are  often  elaborated  by  means  of  the 
stump,  which  gives  gradations  of  singular  softness 
and  refinement.  Drawings  may  be  made  wholly 
with  crayon-powder  (see  Sauce,  in  the  definition 
of  Crayon)  and  the  stump.2  Ancient  drawings, 
especially  those  made  by  the  great  masters  of  the 
Renaissance  and  later  years,  are  preserved  with  the 


1  Crayon :  a  material  used  for  drawing.  As  distinguished  from  a 
lead  pencil  it  is  a  piece  of  hard  chalk  or  indurated  clay,  specially  pre- 
pared, and  mav  be  of  any  color.  Crayons  Cont'e  are  French  pencils  of 
this  kind,  square  bars,  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch  in  section  and  four 
inches  long.  Thev  need  to  be  held  in  a  porte-crayon  or  other  holder. 
The  term  is  extended,  as  in  France,  to  cover  the  crayon  powder  (called 
Sauce  in  the  French  studios). 

2  Stump  :  a  soft,  rounded  and  tapering  implement,  by  which  the 
draughtsman  in  chalk  or  charcoal  or  crayon  of  any  sort  may  rub  his 
hard  lines,  and  so  graduate  and  modify  them.  It  mav  be  a  specially 
prepared  roll  of  soft  leather,  or  an  extemporized  cone  of  paper  or  other 
material. 

[  I03  ] 


DRAWING 


greatest  care,  and  great  collections  of  them  exist 
in  Vienna  (the  Albertina  collection),  in  the  Louvre, 
at  Lille  in  the  Musee  Wicar,  in  the  Uffizi  at 
Florence,  and  similar  ones  in  many  museums  and 
in  private  hands.  Some  of  these  drawings  are 
carried  to  the  pitch  of  artistic  perfection  which 
leaves  nothing  to  be  desired  or  sought  for.  There 
are  other  heads,  studies  of  the  whole  figure  or 
of  drapery,  and  memoranda  of  composition  and 
grouping,  made  in  black  or  black  and  white  chalk, 
by  Titian,  Raphael,  or  Leonardo  —  or  ascribed 
to  him  —  which  are  of  a  beauty  perhaps  un- 
equalled in  the  painted  work  we  have  of  the 
master.  Of  men  of  the  second  rank,  though  still 
great,  Watteau  is  famous  for  his  admirable  draw- 
ings of  character,  the  heads  of  the  men  and 
women  of  his  time,  and  even  of  the  young  negro 
pages  who  waited  on  the  great  ladies  whom  he 
was  continually  painting. 

In  all  kinds  of  drawing,  whether  done  at  first 
hand  or  done  on  metal  with  a  view  to  reproduc- 
tion by  means  of  prints,  the  distinction  must  al- 
ways be  preserved  between  those  drawings  which 
are  deliberately  artistic  and  those  which  are  made 
as  memoranda  alone.  Thus,  nothing  is  more 
puzzling  than  some  of  the  drawings  made  by 
this  or  that  eminent  illustrator  of  books,  or  maker 
of  designs  for  similar  minute  work.  The  first 
embodiment  of  his  conception  by  George  Cruik- 
shank  or  Daumier  or  John  Leech  is  sometimes  a 

[  104  ] 


SKETCHES   AND   FINISHED  WORK 


scrawl  with  corrections  and  changes  of  plan  visible 
in  every  part,  and  with  but  little  charm  even  to  the 
most  practised  student  of  the  artist's  handiwork. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  finished  work  of  such  a 
man  will  have  a  very  high  artistic  charm  even 
where  the  process  used  is  extremely  simple.  To 
mention  George  Cruikshank  alone  ;  a  plate  taken 
almost  at  random  from  his  finer  etched  work  will 
yield  you  a  print  of  great  beauty,  although  the 
work  done  has  been  almost  wholly  in  outline. 
Some  of  those  which  illustrate  Oliver  Twist  are 
as  simple  in  their  way  of  work  as  can  be  imagined, 
and  yet  the  highly  conventionalized  treatment  of 
the  whole  composition,  the  figure  disengaged  in 
dark  solidity  upon  a  very  pale  landscape  upon 
which  every  touch  is  a  mere  descriptive  outline, 
is  as  remote  and  elaborate  a  piece  of  artistic  work 
as  could  be  found  even  in  delicate  painting.  The 
fact  that  these  drawings  were  made  with  a  hard 
point  on  a  surface  of  hardened  varnish  (see  the 
definition  of  Etching,  Chapter  XIX)  does  not 
distinguish  it  in  any  essential  way  from  drawing 
in  the  general  sense.  So  the  winter  landscapes 
which  surround  and  support  the  hunting-field  in- 
cidents of  John  Leech  in  "  Punch  "  of  old  time, 
are  wonderful  designs ;  and  here  the  drawing  has 
been  strong  enough  to  impress  itself  upon  the 
wood-engraver.  The  whole  vast  field  of  recent 
drawing  for  photographic  reproduction  demands 
consideration  here,  for,  indeed  the  conditions  have 

[  105] 


D  R  A  W I  N  G 


changed  ;  but  this  matter  must  be  left  open  for  a 
few  years  yet.  A  new  set  of  maxims  will  form 
themselves  —  new  aspirations  will  be  entertained 
and  old  ones  given  up,  with  regret,  —  before  we 
can  judge  aright  of  modern  book-illustration. 


[  106] 


Part  III 

THE  SEVERAL  FINE  ARTS  OF 
HAND-WORK 


Book  III 


Chapter  Eight 
CERAMIC  ART1 

WORK  in  baked  clay  is  one  of  the 
first  industries  to  which  primitive 
man  set  himself.  The  almost  per- 
fect durability  of  pottery  has  given 
to  modern  students  a  greater  knowledge  of  the 
work  of  earlv  races  in  this  material  than  in  others, 
and  the  remains  of  earthenware  are  among  our 
most  important  historical  monuments.  On  this 
account  ceramic  art  has  always  been  studied  by 
chemists,  on  the  one  hand,  and  by  archaeologists 
on  the  other  hand,  as  one  of  the  most  worthy 
subjects  upon  which  to  exercise  patience  and  his- 
torical insight.  Moreover,  as  modelling  in  clay 
has  always  attracted  artistically  minded  workmen 
(see  Chapters  IV  and  XV),  so  students  of  art  find 
much  satisfaction  in  the  record  of  many  centu- 
ries, as  preserved  in  ceramic  monuments. 

The  character  of  pottery  depends  largely  upon 
the  kind  of  clay  which  is  at  hand.     In  early  ages 


1  Ceramic  Art :  the  art  of  making  vessels  and  other  objects  of  clay, 
or  of  some  substance  or  compound  replacing  clay,  and  then  baking  or 
"firing"  the  pieces  at  a  high  temperature,  see  note,  page  67. 

[  I09  ] 


CERAMIC  ART 


and  during  all  periods  when  the  system  of  trans- 
portation was  not  very  highly  developed,  the 
clay  of  the  nearest  hillside  was  that  which  had 
to  be  used,  and  even  in  modern  times  industries 
anciently  established  in  this  localized  way  have 
been  retained,  though  with  a  certain  modification 
of  the  material.  Thus  at  Apt,  in  Provence,  a 
large  factory  of  earthenware  exists  where  it  has 
existed  for  many  centuries,  but  the  material  now 
used  is  somewhat  different  from  the  native  clay 
used  in  pre-Roman  times  and  in  later  centuries, 
because  modern  chemistry  has  suggested  improve- 
ments or  devices  which  at  least  save  expense.  This 
factory  has  produced,  since  about  i860,  great 
quantities  of  hard  and  fine  ware,  seemly  enough 
in  general  appearance  but  not  verv  decorative : 
fine  terrifies,  but  nothing  artistic.  In  the  eigh- 
teenth century  much  more  decorative  pieces  were 
made  at  Apt.  In  like  manner  it  has  helped  the 
recent  discoveries  of  the  true  origin  of  that  strange 
ware  once  known  as  Faience  Henri  Deux,  that  the 
village  of:  Saint  Porchaire  in  Poitou  retains  its 
beds  of  fine  white  pipe-clay  and  its  workshops, 
though  now  given  over  to  the  making  of  common 
utensils. 

The  ordinary  red  flower-pot  of  our  greenhouses 
is  very  like  the  commoner  earthenware  of  the 
earliest  races  whose  work,  found  along  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean,  betrays  no  special  artistic 
sense.     In  every  great  collection  of  Greek  pottery, 

[  no] 


GRACEFUL   FORM    IN    RUDE  POTTERY 


even  of  the  central  time,  there  are  cups  and  vases 
of  many  forms  and  of  all  sizes  which  are  in 
material  and  in  skill  of  fabrication  not  superior  to 
the  flower-pot.  They  have,  however,  an  immense 
superiority  in  variety  and  beauty  of  form  over  any 
modern  work  ;  this  arising  from  the  existence 
among  the  people  of  a  taste  more  general  and 
more  refined  in  such  matters  than  has  existed 
at  any  time  during  the  nineteenth  century  in  any 
Europeanized  land.  Indeed  the  disappearance  in 
modern  times  of  a  general  power  of  graceful 
design  in  simple  as  well  as  in  more  elaborate 
objects  is  to  be  traced  very  readily  in  pottery, 
where  only  a  few  simply  useful  forms,  like  that 
of  the  flower-pot,  retain  their  old  charm.  The 
easy  comparison  between  earthenware  of  many 
lands  and  many  epochs  affords  another  motive  for 
the  close  study  which  this  art  should  receive,  and 
for  that  which  it  has  received. 

Pottery,  made  by  the  simple  moulding  of  the 
clay,  shaped  by  hand  and  then  baked,  is  not 
often  water-tight  ;  moreover,  it  is  usually  very 
brittle.  Thus  in  Fig.  32,  the  piece,  although  it 
has  been  painted  with  figures,  very  elaborate  for 
the  epoch,  is  still  a  piece  of  common  pottery, 
holding  water  imperfectly.  Indeed  the  painting 
on  the  surface  would  be  injured  by  the  liquid 
soaking  through  the  clay  ;  so  that  such  a  piece 
has  only  a  temporary  or  limited  utility.  To 
remedy  these  evils  even  in   very  early  times  the 

[  ] 


CERAMIC  ART 


experiment  was  tried  of  increasing  the  heat  of 
the  fire,  and,  for  this  purpose,  of  building  a  fur- 
nace of  some  sort,  a  kiln,  in  which  the  heat 
could  be  retained.     It  was  found,  however,  that 

the  great  heat  of  the  kiln 
produced  another  result  as 
well   as  that  of  making 


Fig.   32.     Greek  Pot  :  Asiatic  taste 


the  baked  clay  harder,  less  brittle,  and  more  com- 
pact, —  it  partly  fused  the  sand  which  formed 
the  surface,  so  that  in  this  way  a  kind  of  vitrified 
glaze  overspread  the  surface.  It  was  also  found 
easy  to  produce  a  glaze  by  applying  another  mate- 
rial in  a  thin  coat,  which  glaze  was  completely 
water-tight  except  for  the  flaws  natural  to  rough 
work.     The   way  was  found,  and   nothing  but 

[  "*] 


THE 


INTRODUCTION 


OF  THE 


GLAZE 


more  carerul  workmanship  was  needed  to  make 
the  vessels  hold  water,  and,  as  the  heat  of  an  out- 
of-door  lire  was  nothing  as  compared  to  that  of 
the  kiln  which  the  vessel  had  passed  through,  to 
allow  of  the  boiling  of  that  water  by  the  direct 
application  or  heat  to  the  outside  of  the  vessel. 


Fig.  33.     Greek  Kylix.     Black  ground.     Best  Period 

This  step  in  the  development  may  be  marked 
by  the  Greek  bowl  shown  in  Fig.  33.  The  black 
glaze  which  is  important  to  the  decoration  gives 
also  a  perfect  resistance  to  liquid.  We  have, 
therefore,  the  more  barbaric  decoration  of  the 
sixth  century  b.  c.  and  earlier  times  accompanying 
an  imperfect  glaze,  as  in  the  pot,  Fig  32  ;  and  we 
have  the  drawing  of  the  human  figure,  as  in  slight 

vol.  1—8  [  113  ] 


CERAMIC  ART 


studies  from  almost  perfect  contemporaneous  paint- 
ings in  the  kylix,  Fig.  33,  which  is  of  about  420 
b.  c.  The  earlier  decoration  is  more  brilliant, 
more  effective:  it  is  a  better  covering  pattern.  As 
in  their  architecture  so  in  this  flat  and  monochro- 
matic painting,  the  Greeks  withdrew  from  all 
decorative  appliances  other  than  exquisitely  deli- 
cate form  and  refined  suggestion  of  human  object. 

A  further  step  in  the  development  of  the  ware 
was  accompanied  by  a  resort  to  more  brilliant 
methods  of  decoration.  The  addition  of  much 
thicker  glazes  than  this,  deliberately  applied,  and 
for  that  purpose  made  of  materials  somewhat 
different  from  the  body  of  the  ware,  has  always 
been  a  later  device.  It  is  somewhat  the  rule  to 
speak  of  these  glazes  as  enamels  (see  Chapter 
IX),  at  least  under  certain  conditions,  as  for  in- 
stance when  they  are  opaque  and  afford  a  solid 
surface  on  which  to  paint.  Fig.  34  shows  three 
plates  from  the  island  of  Rhodes  and  from  western 
Asia,  in  which  pieces  the  body  is  a  coarse,  porous, 
and  soft  earthenware,  dark  brown  in  color  ;  but 
this  body  is  concealed  by  a  white  glaze  (enamel), 
upon  which  the  painting  is  done  in  verifiable  pig- 
ments. When  the  glaze  is  translucent  it  is  not 
often  called  enamel.  The  term  is  applied  also  to 
painting  put  upon  this  glaze.  Thus  an  elaboratelv 
adorned  vase  is  composed  of  its  body  and  glaze  ; 
but  the  color-decoration  applied  to  it,  the  painting, 
is  partly  "under  the  glaze"  and  shows  through 

[  114  ] 


PAINTING   ON   OPAQUE  GLAZE 


it,  that  is,  it  has  been  painted  upon  the  paste 
forming  the  body  before  the  glaze  was  added,  and 
partly  over  the  glaze,  that  is,  painted  upon  it 
before  the  last  tiring.  These  over-glaze  paintings 
are  often  called   enamel  painting.     It  is  evident 


Fig.   34.     Persian  plates 

(Marquand  Collection) 


that  such  pieces  cannot  be  finished  by  means  of  a 
single  tiring ;  the  vase  as  modelled  at  first  may  be 
fired  at  a  low  temperature  to  keep  its  shape  per- 
fect, and  then  a  second  time  with  the  under-glaze 
painting ;  a  third  time  with  the  glaze,  a  fourth 
time  with  the  over-glaze  painting,  and  a  fifth 
time  with  the  gilding ;  though  this  is  not  a 
universal  rule.  Fig.  35  shows  a  bottle  of  Chinese 
porcelain  in  which  the  above-named  process  has 

[  115] 


CERAMIC 


ART 


been  followed.     The    whole  design,  horizontal 
bands  of  fret-work  and  scroll-work,  flower  pattern 
and  birds,  has  all  been    drawn   upon  the  paste 
before  firing,  and  the  pigment  used  for  this  out- 
line  drawing  is  one 
that  is  deep  blue  when 
fired.    The  glaze  be- 
ing spread   and  the 
whole  fired  together 
(for  it  is  in  this  way 
that  true  porcelain  is 
made),  the  painting  is 
then  begun  afresh,  in 
a  green  which  is  nearly 
transparent,   a  red 
which  is  less  translu- 
cent, and  other  hues, 
as   orange  and  pink, 
which  are  entirely 
opaque.      There  are 
many  elaborately  deco- 
rated potteries  in 
modern   times  in 
which    the  ceramic 
painting  is  put  upon  the  as  yet  unfired  surface  of 
the  moulded  piece  as  it  stands  ready  tor  its  first 
insertion  into  the  kiln.     This,  of  course,  is  a  dif- 
ficult and  awkward  process,  the  surface  not  lending 
itself  at  all  nicely  to  the  laying  on  of  the  color, 
and  the  color  itself,  in  this  as  in  other  ceramic 

[  "6] 


Fig.  35.     Chinese  bottle,  silver 
mounted 


PAINTING    UNDER    AND   UPON   THE  GLAZE 


processes,  looking  in  its  crude  state  very  unlike 
what  it  will  be  alter  riring.  Still,  such  painting 
has  been  carried  very  far  by  the  French  work- 
men, such  as  those  at  Gien,  and  more  recently  in 


Fig.   36.     Faience  plate  painted  by  A.  Sandier 


the  national  porcelain  factory  at  Sevres,  where 
much  ware  other  than  porcelain  is  now  made. 
Fig.  36  shows  a  piece  of  Faience  prepared  in  this 
way.  The  conventionalized  landscape  and  figure, 
expressive  of  the  sufferings  of  the  French  army 
during  the  winter  of  1870-1 871,  is  painted  in 
brownish  purple  (manganese)  upon  the  unbaked 
body;   the  glaze  is  then  applied  and  the  whole 

[  "7] 


CERAMIC  ART 


fired  together.  The  admirable  artist  who  painted 
this  landscape  in  1871  held  the  conviction  that 
the  onlv  course  open  to  European  workmen,  seek- 
ing ready  means  of  adornment,  was  to  utilize 
expressional  and  representative  art  for  that  pur- 
pose. He  with  others  felt  the  absence  from  the 
European  spirit  of  the  decorative  sense  still  held 
by  Orientals  and  believed  that  only  the  artist  who 
had  a  subject  to  paint  could  rightly  adorn  a  piece 
of  pottery. 

Such  pieces  as  this  may  be  fired  once  only, 
or,  if  fired  twice,  this  will  be  rather  because  of 
a  desired  refinement  in  the  color,  one  pigment 
taking  a  much  longer  time  for  its  proper  baking 
than  another,  and  being  therefore  put  on  separately. 
It  will  readily  be  seen  that  the  practice  of  every 
factory  managed  by  skilful  workmen  may  have 
peculiarities  of  its  own,  and  that  some  of  the  pro- 
cesses so  used  may  even  be  kept  secret.  Still,  the 
general  practice  is  nearly  the  same,  the  differences 
being  as  above  pointed  out. 

There  is,  however,  a  modification  possible  to 
nearly  all  kinds  of  pottery,  which  turns  them 
into  something  very  different,  namely,  stoneware  1 

1  Stonciuare :  ceramic  ware  in  which  the  paste  is  so  permeated  and 
combined  with  vitreous  glaze  that  the  whole  body  of  the  piece  is  water- 
tight. Such  pieces  are  usually  grav  or  pale  vellowish-brown.  Stone- 
ware can  be  told  from  potterv  in  this  simple  wav  :  if  you  put  the  tongue  to 
a  freshlv  broken  surface  the  tongue  will  adhere  to  the  pottery  because  of 
the  rapid  absorption  of  the  moisture  by  the  capillarv  attraction  of  its 
Dorous  substance,  but  it  will  not  adhere  at  all  to  stoneware,  showing 

[  H8  ] 


DECORATION    OF   S  T  ( )  \  E  WAR  E 


This  stoneware  is  used  for  beer  mugs  and  vinegar 
jugs,  and  in  this  way  is  familiar,  but  it  is  used  also 
for  a  very  simple  and  yet  refined  kind  of  decora- 
tive ware  called  sometimes  by  the  erroneous  name 
gres  de  Flandrcs,  and  more  properly  Cologne  ware 
or  Rhenish  stoneware.  In  the  more  elaborate 
pieces  of  this  interesting  variety  of  ceramic  ware  the 
surfaces  are  frequently  impressed  with  patterns 
from  metal  or  from  wood  stamps,  and  are  often 
touched  with  color,  especially  a  deep  blue,  which 
is  effective  on  the  rather  pale  gray  ground.  The 
heads  with  long  beards  often  seen  impressed  upon 
the  neck  of  a  large  jug  on  the  side  opposite  the 
handle,  have  given  rise  to  the  name  Bellarmine  as 
applied  to  such  jugs;  this  being  in  allusion  to 
the  supposed  caricaturing  of  that  powerful  six- 
teenth-century champion  of  Roman  Catholicism 
as  against  the  Protestant  communities  of  North 
Germany  and  the  Netherlands. 

Another  variety  of  ceramic  ware  is  that  which 
is  named  above  as  porcelain,1  and  this  is  different 

that  there  is  little  porosity  and  therefore  no  sensible  absorption  of  the 
moisture.  The  glaze  of  stoneware  is  commonly  produced  by  throwing 
salt  into  the  kiln,  making  a  chemical  combination  with  the  silica  in  the 
ware  and  producing  a  transparent  and  extremely  thin  coating  of  glass, 
which  is  yet  inseparable  from  the  body  of  the  ware. 

1  Porcelain:  a  translucent  ceramic  ware  with  a  specially  transparent 
glaze.  The  materials,  which  have  not  been  replaced  or  imitated  success- 
fully, are  the  substance  called  bv  the  Chinese,  kaolin,  a  product  of  de- 
composing feldspathic  rock,  and  for  the  glaze,  what  the  Chinese  call 
petun-tse  ;  also  a  feldspathic  rock.  The  curious  ware  called  soft  porcelain 
is  described  in  the  text. 

[  II9  ] 


CERAMIC 


ART 


in  its  very  inception  from  all  other  kinds,  in  that 
the  raw  material  is  a  clay  only  by  a  great  exten- 
sion of  that  term.  But  the  processes  of  modelling 
and  of  baking  it  are  similar  to  the  processes  of 
ordinary  work  in  baked  clay.  Porcelain  is  some- 
times turned  out  without  a  glaze  and  is  then  called 
biscuit ;  1  a  term  applied  especially  to  the  figures  and 
groups  of  smooth  but  not  glossy  white  ware  as 
seen  in  Fig.  19.  The  great  majority  of  pieces 
are,  however,  finished  with  the  peculiar  glaze,  and 
of  these  the  greatest  number  are  painted  in  blue 
under  the  glaze,  or  in  other  colors  over  the  glaze, 
or  both,  as  described  in  connection  with  Fig.  35. 
Ware  of  this  kind  was  imported  from  China  and 
from  Japan  into  Europe  throughout  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  and  was  greatly 
admired  and  cared  for  by  collectors  of  such  things. 
Some  splendid  pieces  which  are  known  to  have 
been  imported  as  early  as  the  reign  of  William 
III.  of  England  (1 688-1  702)  are  still  in  European 
museums,  and  in  the  Louvre  are  vases  painted  in 
China  expressly  for  the  Regent  of  France  (171  5- 
1721)  with  his  arms  upon  them.  It  was  therefore 
the  object  of  every  government-supported  ceramic 
establishment  in  Europe  to  discover  the  secret,  the 
material   and  the  process   of  making  porcelain. 

1  Biscuit :  Porcelain  or  fine  pottery  which  has  been  fired  and  has  its 
shape  and  surface  perfectly  determined,  but  has  received  no  glaze.  Such 
a  piece  may  be  prepared  for  glazing  or  it  may  be  deliberately  left  tor  the 
artistic  effect  of  form  alone. 

[  I  20  ] 


SOFT   PORCELAIN   AND   TRUE  PORCELAIN 


It  was  found  impracticable  to  get  the  information 
in  China,  and  this  largely  because  of  the  complete 
absence  of  intimate  intercourse  between  the  Euro- 
peans there,  whether  missionaries  or  traders,  and 
the  people  themselves ;  accordingly  the  chemists 
of  Europe  tried  endless  experiments,  with  the 
result  that  the  most  extraordinary  mixtures  of 
different  ingredients  were  made  into  paste;  from 
the  moulding  and  firing  of  one  of  which  pastes 
there  came  what  we  call  now  soft  porcelain 
[porcelaine  tendre  or  a  pate  tendre),  which  ware, 
whether  made  in  Germany  or  more  especially  in 
Sevres,  is  of  great  value  to-day  on  account  of  its 
rarity,  and  also  because  of  the  less  resistant  sur- 
face and  the  singular  charm  of  the  painting  when 
applied  to  it. 

No  approach  was  made  to  hard  or  true  porce- 
lain until  the  actual  material  was  brought  from 
China.  Then  the  same  or  an  equivalent  material 
was  found  in  several  parts  of  Europe,  and  it  is 
known  to  exist  in  the  United  States  as  well. 
Since  that  time  porcelain  has  been  made  in  many 
places,  but  the  distinction  between  Oriental 
and  European  porcelain  is  very  obvious  in  the 
color,  in  the  look  of  the  fracture  as  well  as  in 
the  modelling  and  painting  of  the  pieces.  The 
Sevres  National  Factory  has  recently,  under  a 
new  management,  established  in  a  definite  way 
two  kinds  of  hard  porcelain,  one  a  close  imitation 
of  the  Chinese  product  with  a  painting  studied 

[  121  ] 


CERAMIC  ART 


from  the  Chinese,  and  therefore  of  the  same 
general  character  in  the  way  of  design,  at  least 
in  so  far  as  the  combination  of  colors  goes  ;  the 
other  still  harder  than  the  Chinese,  and  having  of 
necessity  a  different  system  of  coloration.  Both 
these  wares  are  to  be  admitted  hereafter  into  our 
text-books  as  entirely  differentiated,  to  be  kept  as 
far  apart  in  the  mind  as  Chinese  porcelain  is  from 
soft  porcelain,  which  last  has  been  truly  called 
rather  a  glass  than  a  ceramic  ware. 

The  artistic  treatment  of  all  kinds  of  pottery 
may  be  reduced  to  the  following  schedule  : 

( i )  Coarse  pottery,  without  glaze  or  painting, 
is  dependent  upon  its  shape  and  on  slight  scoring 
or  relief  upon  the  surface  for  any  decorative 
effect  that  it  may  have.  The  forms  are  clumsy 
among  the  African  tribes ;  grotesque  and  ugly, 
though  interesting  from  their  novelty,  in  ancient 
Peru  and  Mexico  ;  frequently,  though  not  always, 
of  extraordinary  refinement  among  the  Greeks 
of  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  b.  c,  and  there- 
after for  many  years  in  all  the  Mediterranean 
region  ;  treated  carelessly  since  the  fall  of  classical 
civilization;  and  usually  utilitarian  in  the  modern 
world  except  that  in  some  few  parts  of  Europe  and 
Europeanized  America  a  traditional  grace  of  form 
is  retained  in  rural  districts.  A  peculiar  respect 
among  Orientals  for  the  swiftly  and  simply  mod- 
elled piece,  without  adornment,  has  been  noted  by 
Europeans,  and  some  attempts  have  been  made 

[  1 2,2  ] 


Fig.  37.     Greek  vase   (Amphora)    17  inches  high,  about  600  B.  c. 
The  reddish  yellow  clay  forms  the  background,  the  bands  are 
black  and  red,  and  the  figures  of  beasts  and  fabulous  creatures  are  in 
black,  purple,  and  dark  red 
On  the  left,  Rhyton,  inches   long,  covered  with  thin  black 

glaze,  painting  in  purple  and  white 
On   the   right,  Rhyton,  7  inches  long,  decoration  similar  to  the 
above 

The  two  Rhytons  are  of  the  fourth  century  b.  c. 

(Marquand  Collection) 


DECORATION    OF   DIFFERENT   CERAMIC  WARES 


by  them  in  the  same  direction  ;  but  in  most  cases 
some  glaze,  or  painted  characters  of  some  sort,  are 
added. 

(2)  Pottery  colored  on  the  surface  in  patterns, 
usually  with  black  and  red  alone  and  usually  in 
very  simple  lines,  waves,  spots,  and  the  like. 
This  decoration  was  much  used  among  the  out- 
lying provinces  of  the  Greek  world,  as  in  the 
Mediterranean  islands,  the  pieces  having  a  fairly 
agreeable  form  which  is  helped  by  the  simple 
painted  patterns  ;  such  decoration  carried  farther 
and  including  rudely  drawn  forms  of  lion  and 
harpy  is  shown  in  Fig.  32;  a  similar  decoration 
carried  farther  is  seen  in  the  central  vase  of  Fig.  37. 
The  same  ware,  when  invested  with  a  thin  black 
glaze  whose  origin  is  unknown,  gives  us  the 
famous  Greek  painted  vases  —  red  figures  left  while 
a  black  ground  is  worked  around  them  as  seen  in 
Fig.  3  3  ;  black  figures  painted  on  a  red  ground, 
as  seen  in  Chapter  VII,  Fig.  29  ;  and  very  rarely 
other  colors  introduced,  as  in  the  piece  reproduced 
in  Fig.  32  of  the  present  chapter.  The  outlines 
of  the  figures  are  often  found  scribed  in  the  clay, 
as  mentioned  in  Chapter  VII  ;  but  it  is  evident 
that,  frequently,  this  has  been  done  after  the 
painting,  as  if  to  give  a  little  emphasis.  The 
system  of  design  in  such  ancient  pieces  is,  then, 
first  a  very  tasteful  modelling  of  the  body,  handles, 
spout,  etc.,  and  this  carried  out  with  very  care- 
ful workmanship,  all  surfaces  truly  rounded  and 

[  123  ] 


CERAMIC  ART 


smooth  ;  second,  a  drawing  on  the  surface,  appar- 
ently swift  and  easy,  but  the  work  of  men  of 
singular  knowledge  and  power,  so  that  the  figures 
are  largely  and  nobly  composed,  and  the  whole 
group  or  series  is  at  once  decorative  with  regard 
to  the  piece,  and  full  of  individual  merit;  third, 
a  covering  of  large  parts  of  the  piece  (either  the 
figures,  or  the  ground  which  relieves  the  figures, 
as  stated  above)  with  lustrous  black  varnish.  Of 
the  same  epoch  and  wrought  under  the  same 
influences  are  the  pieces  modelled  in  various  dec- 
orative forms,  such  as  the  rhvtons  seen  in  Fig.  37. 

(3)  Coarse  pottery  which  is  decorated  by 
means  of  slip 1  in  bands,  zigzags,  and  the  like, 
these  being,  of  course,  in  rather  decided  relief. 
The  slip,  even  though  of  the  same  paste  as  the 
body  of  the  piece,  may  be  of  a  different  color. 
Thus,  a  white  slip  on  a  yellowish-brown  body 
was  rather  frequent  in  English  ware  of  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries.  During  the 
epochs  when  slip  has  been  much  in  use  the 
forms  were  not  generally  attractive  ;  in  fact,  slip- 
decorated  pieces  are  usually  of  inferior  and  not 
very  artistic  ware.  The  splendid  porcelains  dec- 
orated by  M.  L.  Solon  and  others  in  patc-sur-pate 
are,  however,  of  the  same  character.  In  these 
pieces,   a  porcelanous   colored    paste   forms  the 

1  Slip  :  Ceramic  paste  made  very  thin  bv  addition  of  water  so  as  to 
be  poured  from  a  spout  upon  the  surface  of  a  piece  before  it  is  fired  ;  used 
sometimes  for  dipping  the  whole  piece,  so  that  the  slip  acts  as  a  glaze. 

[  124] 


DECORATION    OF    DIFFERENT   CERAMIC  WARES 


body,  and  the  artist  works  in  the  same  paste,  un- 
colored  and  thinned  with  water.  When  this  slip 
is  applied  in  a  very  thin  coat,  the  colored  back- 
ground is  seen  through  its  translucent  substance 
and  thus  a  very  gentle  gradation  is  obtainable,  up 
to  pure  white,  where  the  slip  is  laid  on  thickly. 

(4)  Coarse  pottery,  covered  with  a  very  opaque 
glaze  which  hides  the  surface  of  the  piece,  that 
which  is  known  as  Faience.  Some  of  the  most 
magnificent  ceramic  wares  belong  to  this  class. 
Thus,  the  thickly  glazed  potteries  of  Italy  in  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  those  called  ma- 
jolica 1  (maiolica)  and  mezza  majolica  are  made 
of  a  coarse  and  soft  ware  which  a  stick  would 
scratch,  but  this  is  entirely  concealed  by  the  thick 
white  glaze  (enamel)  upon  which  the  most  elabo- 
rate painting  has  been  applied  (see  Fig.  38.) 
Sometimes  the  portrait  of  a  lady  is  painted  in  the 
middle  of  a  flat  dish ;  sometimes  a  vase  with  a 
generally  white  surface  is  covered  with  the  most 
minute  and  delicately  painted  arabesques.2  Some- 

1  Majolica  :  Italian  ware  decorated  in  brilliant  colors  on  an  opaque 
glaze,  the  body  of  which  ware  is  usually  coarse  pottery.  The  term  is  of 
disputed  etymology,  the  name  of  the  island  Majorca  having  been  suggested 
in  connection  with  it.  As  the  origin  of  the  ware  is  probably  in  the  His- 
pano  Moresque  ware  of  Spain,  and  as  Majorca  was  dependent  upon  the 
Spanish  crown  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  it  is  probable  that  the  above 
given  derivation  is  correct.  An  attempt  has  been  made  to  limit  the 
application  of  the  term  Majolica  to  those  pieces  which  have  reflets 
metalliques. 

2  Arabesque  :  decoration  in  scrolls  or  flowing  patterns  of  any  kind,  es- 
pecially those  which  resemble  Italian  sixteenth-century  work  studied  from 

[  ] 


CERAMIC  ART 


times  the  centre  of  a  dish  or  the  body  of  a  vase 
will  receive  a  medallion  within  which  a  scene 
with  landscape  and  many  figures  is  given,  all 
painted  with  a  certain  disregard  of  accurate  ana- 


Fic.   38.     Majolica  dish 

("  La  Collection  Spitzer  ") 

tomical  correctness  in  figures  or  perspective  in 
landscape,  and  this  because  of  the  reluctant  nature 
of  the  material,  which  lends  itself  easily  to  bril- 
liancy of  color  but  with  difficulty  to  refinements 
of  drawing.     It  is  greatly  to  be  desired  that  the 


ancient  Roman  examples.  True  Eastern  work,  as  of  the  Mohammedan 
nations,  is  seldom  called  by  this  name. 

[  126  ] 


ITALIAN  MAJOLICA   AND   FRENCH  FAIENCE 


attempt  should  be  made  to  apply  such  decoration 
to  modern  uses  and  habits ;  but  most  of  the  mod- 
ern majolica  is  in  too  close  imitation  of  the  old, 
and  appeals  as  such  to  buyers.  The  addition  of 
such  glazes  as  when  fired  will  have  a  brilliant 
metallic  look  is  due  to  the  manufacture  kept  up 
by  the  Dukes  of  Ferrara,  in  that  city.  It  has 
received  the  French  name  reflet  metallique  or  me- 
tallic lustre,  and  these  lustres  are  divisible  into 
silver  lustre,  gold  lustre,  copper  lustre ;  the  last 
having  sometimes  a  deep  color  of  great  beauty  and 
being  then  called  often  ruby  lustre.  This  ware 
was  preceded  in  time  by  the  work  of  the  Moors 
in  Spain,  followed  afterwards  by  the  Spaniards 
after  the  partial  expulsion  of  the  Moors,  and  this 
is  apparently  the  result  of  a  study  of  still  more 
ancient  Rhodian  and  Syrian  wares  by  workmen 
possessing  somewhat  different  materials  to  work 
in.  These  pieces,  commonly  known  as  Hispano- 
Moresque  ware,  are  seldom  as  brilliant  as  the 
Italian  pieces,  and  have  never  figure  subjects,  but 
they  are  fine  in  shape,  and  the  conventional  pattern 
in  silvery  and  pale-yellowish  lustre  is  often  of 
extreme  beauty. 

The  Italian  movement  above  described  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  very  general  adoption  of  richly  painted 
Faience.  The  earliest  was  that  of  Rouen,  in 
Normandy,  which  may  date  from  the  earlier 
years  or  the  sixteenth  century.  The  wares  of 
many  French  and  Rhenish  towns  contended  with 

[  127  ] 


CERAMIC  ART 


one  another,  Nevers  and  Montpellier  with  Stras- 
burg  ;  and  those  of  Moustiers-Sainte-Marie  in  Pro- 
vence, the  production  of  several  different  makers, 
are  generally  characterized  by  a  very  graceful 
decoration  of  wreaths  and  festoons,  as  shown  in 


Fig.  40.     Persian  bottles  in  dark  blue  and  pale  blue  on 
bluish-white  ground 

(Marquand  Collection) 

The  matter  of  refined  delicacy  and  subtlety  of 
gradation  in  the  coloring  is  best  understood  by 
one  who  studies  the  Persian  wares  with  their 
close  following  in  Syria,  this  industry  seeming 
to  have  culminated  in  the  filth  century  of  the 
Christian  era.  Unfortunately  pieces  in  good  con- 
dition are  extremely  rare,  and  bring  enormous 
prices  (see  Fig.  40  and  compare  Fig.  34).  Tiles, 
also,  painted  in  Persia  in  the  sixteenth  century  and 
later,  and  those  closely  copied  from  Persian  models 

[  128  ] 


Fig.   39.     Vase,  French  Faience  :  sixteen  inches  high.     Made  at 
Moustiers-Ste. -Marie,  in  Provence  ;  decoration  probably 
by  Olerys,  about  1740 


PERSIAN    ENAMELLED  WARES 


and  applied  to  the  interior  walls  of  mosques  and 
dwellings  in  Cairo,  Damascus,  and  other  Levan- 
tine cities,  although  devoid  of  such  special  bril- 
liancy as  was  given  at  a  later  time  by  the  metallic 


Fig.   41.     Persian  tiles,  square  panel 

(Marquand  Collection) 

lustre,  are,  on  account  of  their  exquisitely  soft  and 
melting  coloration  and  the  admirable  drawing 
and  composition  of  the  patterns  to  which  this 
coloring  is  applied,  among  the  most  perfect  ex- 
amples of  ceramic  art.  Fig.  41  shows  a  square 
panel  made  up  of  many  Persian  tiles  painted  with 
a  continuous  diaper  pattern,  and  Fig.  155  gives  a 

VOL.   I—9  [    I  29  ] 


C  E  R  A  M  I  C    A  R  rF 


door  head  (tympanum)  of  precisely  similar  make 
and  decoration.  In  connection  with  this,  what  is 
said  in  the  course  of  this  work  about  the  singular 
merit  of  Persian  decorative  designing  should  be 
considered  ;  but  it  may  be  noted  that  such  work 
tends  to  great  elaboration  of  the  pattern  itself, 
devout  study  of  its  interlacing  forms  and  their 
combination,  rather  than  to  the  effect  of  this 
kind  of  ornament  upon  the  building  or  apart- 
ment which  it  is  intended  to  adorn. 

(5)  Stoneware,  as  described  above.  Evidently 
the  simplest  way  of  dealing  artistically  with  this 
ware  is  to  study  severe  forms,  and  then  to  orna- 
ment these  with  stamped  or  incised  patterns.  Re- 
cent experiment  has  given  us  a  much  greater 
variety  of  colors  and  has  shown  that  stoneware, 
with  all  its  hardness  and  durability,  is  capable  of 
the  most  important  service  in  decorative  architec- 
ture. These  results  have  been  reached  at  the 
Sevres  National  Manufactory,  and  promise  a  great 
enlargement  of  the  scope  of  ceramic  art  in  the 
twentieth  century. 

(6)  Yellow  ware.  A  hard  paste  covered  with  a 
thin  but  singularly  vitreous  glaze,  usually  crackled. 
This  is  known  in  Europe,  and  may  be  instanced 
by  the  Apt  ware,  described  above  ;  but  its  chief 
development  has  been  in  Japan.  Figure  42  is  a 
very  large  vase  of  Satsuma  ware,  painted  with  a  red 
flowering  fruit  tree  on  a  grayish-yellow  crackled 
ground. 

[  130  ] 


Fig.  42.     Large  vase,  Japanese  hard  yellow  ware,  with  crackled 
glaze.     Province  of  Satsuma,  eighteenth  century  a.  d. 


STONEWARE,   YELLOW  WARE,  AND  PORCELAIN 


(7)  Porcelain.  Of  this,  the  chief  of  ceramic 
wares,  the  centre  and  stronghold  is  the  great  king- 
dom of  China,  which  has  always  enjoyed,  as  it 
seems,  a  monopoly  of  perfect  skill,  readiness,  and 
adaptability  in  the  practical  arts  of  ceramic  ware 
as  well  as  that  which  is,  on  the  whole,  the  highest 
range  of  decorative  painting  adapted  to  them. 
Even  the  exquisite  work  of  the  Japanese  must  be 
taken  as  derived  from  the  Chinese  example,  as, 
indeed,  the  Japanese  themselves  are  eager  to  assert. 
Research  into  the  earliest  history  of  Chinese 
ceramic  art  is  as  yet  in  its  infancy,  but  for  the 
purpose  of  the  modern  student  it  may  be  accepted 
as  beginning  with  the  tenth  century  of  our  era, 
when  advance  in  all  mechanical  and  decorative 
arts  seems  to  have  been  very  great.  Contempora- 
neously with  the  great  school  of  painting  in  China, 
perhaps  in  the  tenth  century  of  our  era,  the 
ceramic  industry  was  greatly  advanced,  and  the 
singular  city  of  porcelain  factories  at  King-te- 
Ching  was  established.  As  to  the  fine  art  of  the 
Chinese  shown  in  ceramic  ware,  it  is  best  known 
to  Europeans  by  the  vases  and  dishes,  plates  and 
bowls,  which  have  been  brought  to  the  West  in 
such  vast  quantities  ;  but  figures  of  sacred  and 
popular  legend,  whether  of  man  or  beast,  or  groups 
of  both,  and  also  certain  utilitarian  pieces,  small 
and  delicate  and  admitting  of  careful  decoration 
are  to  be  included.  The  fault  most  generally 
found   by   very   refined   artistic  students   in  the 

[  131  ] 


CERAMIC  ART 


West  is  that  Chinese  painted  decoration  on  por- 
celain and  on  fine  pottery  is  hard  and  sharp-edged, 
the  colored  or  gilded  liower  too  visibly  picked 
out  and  isolated  upon  the  bluish-white  ground. 
This  tendency  may  be  admitted  as  being  less  per- 


Fig.  43.     Chinese  porcelain  bowl 


fectly  satisfactory  than  the  Persian  tendency  toward 
a  more  delicately  graduated  system  of  passing  from 
background  to  pattern  ;  but  this  admission  once 
made  there  is  nothing  left  but  praise  for  the  ex- 
quisite drawing,  the  elaborate  and  careful  study  of 
nature,  and  the  extraordinary  brilliancy  of  color 
produced  by  the  Chinese  decorators  of  porcelain. 
Where  the  painted  pattern  is  minute  and  complex 
this  hard  and  sharp  look  tends  to  disappear.  Thus 
in  Fig.  43,  a  small  bowl  is  painted  with  a  very 

[  132  ] 


CHINESE    PAINTING   ON  PORCELAIN 


conventional  landscape,  a  fortified  gateway  with  the 
houses  of  a  town,  and  those  outside  of  the  town 
built  upon  piles  in  the  river  ;  with  rocks  and  trees 
and  distant  mountains.  All  this  is  in  full  color, 
generally  translucent,  and  much  graded  by  just 
such  stippling  as  would  be  done  in  water-color. 
The  sky  behind  the  city  is  green,  passing  slowly 
into  reddish-brown,  the  foreground  rocks  are  blue 
and  dull  green,  and  the  less  translucent  colors,  red 
and  orange,  are  used  in  the  foliage,  the  blossoms 
of  the  bare  trees,  and  the  flags  among  the  shipping. 
The  admirable  painting  of  certain  large  and  showy 
pieces  of  hard  and  crackled  pottery  of  Japan  is 
alone  to  be  compared  with  the  finer  painted  deco- 
ration of  China. 


[  KU  ] 


Cha  pter  Nine 


THE  VITREOUS 1  ART 

GLASS  has  been  in  use  since  the  twentieth 
century  b.  c,  when  it  was  common 
in  Egypt;  but  although  much  used 
there  and  afterwards  in  China,  it  was 
rather  as  a  somewhat  costly,  and  somewhat  un- 
manageable material  in  which  were  made  del- 
icate toys,  jewelry,  and  emblematic  or  religious 
figures,  to  which  in  a  tew  cases  a  higher  order  of 
artistic  design  was  imparted  ;  but  rarely  for  any 
utilitarian  purpose.  Among  the  inhabitants  of 
Greece  of  the  Mycenaean  2  age  blue  glass  was  in  use 
as  a  material  tor  colored  inlay,  producing  very 
beautiful  effects  in  architectural  friezes  and  the 
like.     The  question  as  to  whether  any  people  of 

1  Vitreous  :  having  to  do  with  glass,  which  itself  is  an  amorphous, 
that  is,  non-crystalline  metallic  body,  the  name  being  given  especially  to 
artificial  products,  not  including  obsidian,  which  is  a  volcanic  glass.  The 
making  of  glass  is  the  fusing  of  flint  and  similar  bodies  in  connection  with 
soda.  The  substance  is  not  necessarily  transparent,  but  it  tends  always 
towards  translucency  as  it  does  towards  a  polished  surface,  the  lustre  of 
that  surface  being  especially  designated  as  vitreous  lustre. 

2  Mycenaan  :  belonging  to  an  early  and  not  accurately  dated  epoch 
thought  to  be  of  the  years  before  iooo  b.  c,  the  artistic  remains  of  which 
were  first  studied  when  found  among  the  ruins  of  Mycenae  in  Greece. 

[  134] 


GLASS 


F  O  R 


WINDOWS 


antiquity  had  glass  windows  is  answered  by  the 
discovery  of  at  least  one  window  in  Pompeii  with 
pieces  of  glass  well  set  in  a  bronze  frame;  but  it 
remains  doubtful  whether  such  windows  were  at 
all  common.  It  is  noticeable,  however,  that  the 
civilized  peoples  of  antiquity,  living  along  the 
Mediterranean  and  in  lands  that,  then  as  now, 
were  warmer  than  the  northern  parts  of  Europe, 
seem  to  have  felt  indifferent  to  their  winter  in  a 
way  comparable  to  that  disregard  of  cold  shown 
by  people  of  modern  Italian  cities,  where  fires  in 
houses,  at  least  for  the  Italians  themselves,  are  al- 
most unknown,  except  for  cooking,  and  the  people 
even  in  open  shops  reach  some  degree  of  comfort 
by  additional  clothing.  The  disregard  of  cold 
seems  to  have  been  carried  much  farther  in  anti- 
quity even  than  in  modern  times,  as  is  evident  by 
the  great  number  of  residences  which  had  no 
floor  except  the  natural  soil,  or  such  modification 
of  it  as  might  consist  in  sand  filled  into  a  restrained 
space  and  paved  with  tiles.  The  hypocaust 1  was, 
naturally,  limited  to  a  few  costly  residences  and 
the  public  baths.  Under  these  circumstances  the 
window  was  most  commonly  open  to  the  admission 
of  air  as  well  as  light,  both  being  checked  in  their 
entry  by  a  screen  of  some  sort,  a  grating  or  slab 

1  Hypocaust :  in  Latin  a  flue  ;  hence  in  archaeology,  a  hollow  floor  or 
wall  or  combination  of  both  through  which  the  smoke  of  a  furnace 
might  draw;  a  convenient  way  of  warming  the  air  of  a  room,  and  giving 
to  the  occupants  direct  radiant  heat. 

[  US  ] 


THE   VITREOUS  ART 


pierced  with  holes  for  all  windows  but  the  small- 
est. For  other  semi-utilitarian  purposes,  however, 
glass  was,  at  least  during  the  last  four  or  five 
centuries  of  the  Greco-Roman  civilization,  in  use 


Fig.  44.     Two  small  plain  bottles 

(Marquand  Collection) 


much  more  freely  than  in  our  own  time.  Thus 
the  Romans,  in  addition  to  their  abundant  stock 
of  materials  for  wall-lining,  such  as  rich  marbles, 
cheaper  white  and  veined  marble,  mosaic  of  vari- 
ous materials,  and  tiles  of  earthenware,  had  also 
tiles  of  glass,  beautiful  in  color  and  often  charged 
with  bas-reliefs  of  human  subject.  As  for  the 
Roman  use  of  glass  for  vessels,  it  was  very  exten- 

[  136] 


DECORATIVE   GLASS   IN  ANTIQUITY 


sive,  but  in  this  the  people  of  the  imperial  epoch 
followed  the  example  of  their  predecessors  for 
three  centuries. 
The  tombs  of  all 
the  Mediterra- 
nean lands  are 
found  to  possess 
a  rich  treasure  of 
vials,  basins,  plates, 
and  vases.  Fig. 
44  shows  two  of 
the  smaller  and 
simpler  bottles, 
such  as  are  found 


Fig.  45 


in  graves  in  the  lands  of  the  eastern  Mediterra- 
nean. The  rough  look 
of  the  exterior  with  parts 
about  to  peel  off  is  the 
result  of  that  same  decay 
in  the  substance  which 
gives  the  varied  colors 
spoken  of  below.  In  all 
these  simple  vessels  the 
general  beauty  of  form  is 
very  noticeable.  The 
adjoining  figures  give 
pieces  of  much  greater 
variety  of  design,  —  the 
piece  Fig.  45  having  an 
original   lavender  color   of  great   delicacy  apart 

[  137] 


Fin.  45  bi 


THE    VITREOUS  ART 


from  all  decay  and  subsequent  iridescence ;  Fig. 
45  bis  a  delicate  greenish  blue;  and  45  ter  a  green 
so  pale  that  the  glass,  while  it  retained  its  full 
transparency,  must  have  been  nearly  as  colorless 
as  a  modern  fine  tumbler.  The  fantastical  han- 
dles and  other  applied  ornaments  are  simply  ropes 
of  softened  glass  made  to  adhere  while  hot ;  and 

even  the  thin 
thread  which  is 
wound  around 
the  neck  of  the 
piece  45  bis  is  of 
glass  pulled  out 
thin  and  fine. 
The  ridges,  45 
ter,  are  pinched 
up  or  raised  from  the  body  of  the  glass  while 
plastic.  Some  of  the  vases  in  our  museums  are 
so  large  as  to  hold  two  gallons  or  thereabouts, 
these  large  ones  being  frequently  used  as  cinerary1 
urns. 


Fig.  45  ter 


1  Cinerary  :  having  to  do  with  ashes.  Cinerary  Urn  :  one  used 
to  contain  the  ashes  of  the  dead  body  which  has  been  burned,  though  it 
is  doubtful  whether  the  adjective  is  derived  from  this  use  of  it  or  from 
the  use  of  heat  in  baking  the  clay  from  which  the  majority  of  such  urns 
are  composed.  Some  of  these  urns  are  not  vase-shaped,  and  in  Etruria 
there  are  many  which  are  made  like  small  clay  models  of  the  houses  of 
the  people,  — sometimes  square  or  oblong  with  gabled  roofs,  sometimes 
round,  sometimes  covered  with  bas-reliefs,  also  in  baked  clay  ;  having 
often  the  cover  crowned  by  an  image  of  the  deceased,  usually  in  a 
recumbent  attitude.  The  use  of  vase-shaped  vessels  was,  however,  so 
general  as  to  make  our  modern  use  of  the  word  "  urn,"  as  almost  equivalent 
to  vase,  reasonably  accurate. 


[  *3*  ] 


COLOR   EFFECTS   IN  GLASS 


The  brilliant  iridescence  of  some  of  this  ancient 
glass  is  the  result  not  of  design,  but  of  a  natural 
process  of  decay.  The  artistic  character  of  this 
glass  is  to  be  found  in  beauty  of  general  form, 
fantastic  details  of  ornament,  and  original  coloring 
in  amber,  blue,  and  more  rarely  other  brilliant 
hues.  If  the  student  will  disregard  iridescence, 
which  has  no  more  to  do  with  the  artistic  quality 
of  the  piece  than  the  sparkle  of  an  ore  or  the 
colors  of  a  pebble  on  the  beach,  he  can  buy 
exquisite  ancient  glass  at  a  very  reasonable  price. 

Glass  requires  a  very  high  temperature  in  the 
furnace  in  which  it  is  fused.  The  materials 
being  once  melted  together  may  then  be  colored 
in  almost  any  shade,  for  although  the  number 
of  pigments  which  will  bear  the  heat  is  lim- 
ited, the  mingling  and  combination  of  these  is 
sufficient  to  give  much  variety  of  hue.  Be- 
sides color  in  the  usual  sense,  glass  will  take  other 
very  interesting  characteristics.  Thus  what  is 
called  arsenated  or  simply  arsenic  glass  is  made 
by  the  use  of  a  salt  of  that  metal,  which  gives  to 
the  glass  a  curious  milky  tinge  and  makes  it 
nearly  opaque,  while  the  edges  through  which 
light  passes  show  a  spark  of  a  warm  color  quite 
different  from  the  cloudy  white  of  the  body  as 
seen  by  refracted  light.  A  modification  of  this 
process  gives  what  is  called  opalescent  or  opaline 
glass,  in  which  while  the  cloudy  white  and  the 
bright  spark  remain  the  same,  the  translucency  is 

[  J39  ] 


THE   VITREOUS  ART 


more  complete,  and  therefore  the  red  or  orange 
transmitted  light  is  more  effective  ;  but  this  opal- 
escent glass  may  then  be  stained  or  dyed  in  the 
mass  without  losing  its  opalescent  quality,  and 
this  property  is  at  the  bottom  of  some  modern 
improvements  in  decorative  windows  of  which 
more  will  be  said  below.  Moreover,  as  glass 
when  withdrawn  from  the  furnace  begins  to 
harden  very  rapidly,  and  takes  a  pasty  consist- 
ence, in  which  state  it  can  be  moulded,  rolled  out 
and  shaped  easily,  it  has  been  found  possible  to 
insert  into  the  solid  mass  pieces  of  colored  glass 
previously  prepared  ;  and  a  development  of  this 
process  has  given  the  world  an  extraordinary 
series  of  glass  vessels  dating  from  Roman  imperial 
times  and  from  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  in  which  solid,  clear,  uncolored  glass, 
like  crystal  though  not  so  brilliant,  holds  em- 
bedded in  its  mass  pieces  of  opaque  glass  in  a 
great  variety  of  colored  patterns.  The  general 
aspect  of  such  pieces  is  rather  curious  and  fan- 
tastic than  beautiful  in  a  very  high  sense,  but  no 
work  of  man's  hands  inspires  more  respect  for  the 
skilled  ingenuity  of  those  who  have  brought  it 
to  perfection.  Another  variety  of  this  is  the 
well  known  Vitro  di  Trino.1  Fig.  46  shows  a 
piece  of  this  curious  ware  in  which  the  clear 
glass  encloses  white  threads ;   larger  ones  of  the 


1  Vitro  di  Trino:  "thread  glass  ;  "  that  which  is  filled  with  white 
threads  buried  in  the  transparent  mass. 

[  HO  ] 


Fig.  46.     Glass  Dish.     Vitro  di  Trino 

(Marquand  Collection) 


MOULDING  AND   MODELLING   OF  GLASS 


tapering  form,  smaller  ones  laid  parallel  to  one 
another  and  in  two  layers,  so  that  each  set  of 
these  threads  looks  like  a  net,  though  in  reality 
the  threads  do  not  meet. 

The  viscosity  or  glass  when  half  melted  enables 
it  to  be  welded  together  in  almost  any  manner, 
and  with  reasonable  security  even  for  very  small 
pieces.  Thus  the  modern  glass  factories  of 
Venice  keep  in  stock  a  certain  number  of  patterns 
of  goblets  and  wine-glasses,  and  they  make  no 
difficulty  in  taking  an  order  for  a  set  with  the 
bowl  of  this  pattern,  the  foot  of  that,  and  the  stem 
with  its  knop  and  branches  of  a  third  pattern 
again.  Such  work,  though  to  be  deprecated  from 
the  point  of  view  of  good  taste,  shows  how  easily 
glass  can  be  handled.  In  this  way  also  is  made 
that  Mass  which  is  the  richest  in  effect  of  all 
antique  wares,  the  vases  adorned  with  waved  bands 
and  zigzags  of  contrasting  color,  closely  cemented 
together  to  form  the  piece. 

Glass  can  also  be  pressed  in  a  mould,  and  it  is 
rather  common  in  the  modern  Venice  product  to 
see  mascarons  1  of  red  or  of  some  other  brilliant 
color  put  on  two  opposite  sides  of  a  finger-bowl 

1  Mascaron :  a  carved  or  moulded  resemblance  of  the  human  face 
more  or  less  grotesquelv  treated  and  made  to  resemble  the  face  of  a  satvr 
or  other  semi-human  imaginary  creature,  used  as  a  decorative  appliance. 
Such  ornamentation  was  common  in  the  neo-classic  work  of  Europe  after 
the  time  of  the  Renaissance.  In  architecture,  the  mascaron  mav  be  colos- 
sal or  of  life-size,  hardly  smaller  ;  but  in  the  minor  arts  it  is  used  of  all 
sizes. 

[  141  ] 


THE 


VITREOUS 


A  R  T 


or  the  like.  Where  such  pieces,  rather  solid  and 
heavy  in  comparison  with  the  thin  bowl  itself, 
have  been  affixed,  the  glass  is  apt  to  be  very  brittle. 
Moreover,  a  pressed  glass  is  never  very  delicate  in 
its  parts ;  the  forms  are  never  sharp  and  clear,  and 
their  possible  subtlety  is  injured  by  the  very  lustre 


Fig.  47.     Two  Persian  aiguieres 

(Marquand  Collection) 


which  makes  glass  especially  attractive.  This  ad- 
hesive quality  of  the  partially  cooled  glass  gives  us 
also  the  admirable  work  shown  in  Fig.  45  ;  and 
also  the  more  utilitarian  building  up  of  a  vessel 
from  many  parts  as  seen  in  Fig.  47,  which  shows 
two  spouted  vessels,  aiguieres,  of  Persian  make. 
The  handles  and  some  of  the  ornaments  are  deep 
blue,  but  the  body  of  the  piece  is  nearly  trans- 
parent, and  is  but  slightly  tinted. 

Besides  its  capacity  of  being  moulded  and  cast, 
glass  is  extremely  ductile  and  indefinitely  expan- 
sible, and  this  allows  of  what  is  known  as  glass- 

[  142  ] 


MOULDING    AND   MODELLING   OF  GLASS 


blowing.1  We  have,  then,  the  possible  combina- 
tion in  a  single  small  vessel,  such  as  a  drinking 
glass,  of  a  moulded  foot,  stem,  and  boss,  with  a 
wing  of  drawn-out  thread-glass  twisted  into  a  fili- 
gree'2 on  either  side  of  the  stem,  or  a  very  elaborate 
piece  of  twisted  and  platted  glass-ropes  to  replace 
the  stem,  a  bowl  of  a  fantastic  form  mounted  upon 
this  stem,  a  separate  cover  with  a  knop  of  indefi- 
nite complexity  also  moulded  and  applied,  and 
every  part  of  this  filled  with  patterns  in  the  glass 
itself,  or  so  colored  in  the  mass  that  each  part 
is  a  chromatic  design  of  some  elaboration.  Noth- 
ing, in  short,  but  the  good  taste  of  the  workman 
prevents  the  accumulation  in  one  vessel  of  too 
many  different  effects  of  form  and  color  to  be 
satisfactory. 

Fig.  48  is  a  wine-glass  all  of  one  color,  the 
bowl  of  which  has  been  cemented  to  the  stem 
while  both  parts  were  hot ;  but  the  stem  itself  is 
made  in  one  piece  as  the  bowl  is.  In  either  case 
the  rounded  hollow  form  is  produced  by  the  use 

1  Glass-blowing :  the  process  of  shaping  hollow  vessels  of  glass  by 
blowing  through  a  tube  into  the  half-fused  mass,  which  process  may  be 
extended  to  the  inflating  of  the  glass  into  large  cylinders,  which  then, 
being  cut  down  one  side,  may  be  flattened  out  into  smooth  sheets.  This 
was  the  commonest  way  of  making  window  glass  until  quite  recent  times. 
Bottles  and  similar  vessels  are  made  by  some  modification  of  the  glass- 
blowing  process. 

2  Filigree :  literally,  thread-work  ;  ornament  by  means  of  fine  wires, 
or  the  like,  so  twisted  and  combined  into  scrolls  as  to  produce  an  open, 
flat  pattern.  Small  balls  or  grains  of  metal  or  glass  are  often  secured  to 
the  wires  or  threads  as  a  further  decoration. 


[  H3  ] 


THE    VITREOUS  ART 


of  the  blow-pipe,  as  indeed  is  the  foot  itself.  The 
shears  were  used  to  give  the  shape  required  to 
the  foot  and  to  limit  the  height  of  the  bowl. 

Fig.  49  is  a  wholly 
modern  bottle- 
shaped  vase  of 
Venice  glass,  to 
which  the  elab- 
orate wreath  of 
leaves  and  flowers 
is  attached  while 
hot,  each  little 
piece  by  itself, 
a  combination  of 
many  translucent 
colors.  The 
separate  pieces, 
though  welded  to 
the  body  while 
both  are  hot,  are 
so  disposed  as  to 
give  the  effect 
of  a  flowering 
branch  twisted 
spirally  around  the  vase.  The  body  is  thick, 
nearly  transparent,  and  of  a  delicate  amber,  while 
the  leaves  and  flowers  are  subdued  green  and 
blue  in  many  gradations  of  color. 

The  extreme  brilliancy  of  colored  glass  sug- 
gests decoration  bv  these  positive  hues  even  with- 

[  144  ] 


Fig.  48. 


Wine-glass,  seventeenth 
century 


ORIGINAL   MODERN    WORK    IN  GLASS 


out  beauty  or  interesting  complexity  of  form. 
Thus  some  work  done  during  the  last  decade  of 
the  nineteenth  century  was  noticeable  for  its  lus- 
trous and  modula- 
ted color  added  to 
the  surface  of  ves- 
sels of  no  special 
character  of  form  ; 
the  colored  glass 
being  applied  in 
thin  layers  while 
both  these  and  the 
body  were  at  a 
high  temperature, 
—  a  f a  c  t  which 
differentiates  this 
work  from  all 
kinds  of  enamel- 
ling. 

It  is  easy  to  see 
how  attractive  to 
the  artist  are  all 
the  above-named 
various  modes  of 
adorning  glass  vessels.  Boldness  and  delicacy, 
variety  of  form  and  color,  leading  on  to  richness 
and  brilliancy  or  to  extreme  delicacy,  are  alike 
to  be  got  by  the  glass-worker,  whether  he  works 
alone  with  a  blow-pipe  and  a  simple  gas-flame, 
or  at  the  furnace  mouth  as   director  of   halt  a 

VOL.  I      -  I O  [  ] 


Fig.  49.     Venice  bottle,  fifteen 
inches  high 


THE   VITREOUS  ART 


score  of  skilled  operatives.  At  the  Paris  exhibi- 
tion of  i  900  were  wine-glasses  of  singular  refine- 
ment of  form  and  color,  made  of  a  single  lump 
of  hot  glass  drawn  out  into  a  tube,  compressed 
in  a  mould,  expanded  by  the  blow-pipe,  trim- 
med to  size  with  the  shears, — marvels  of  deli- 
cacy ;  and  these  are  said  to  have  been  made, 
and  might  have  been  made,  in  the  dwelling 
of  the  amateur  workmen  who  imagined  them. 
Again,  near  at  hand,  were  the  great  New  York 
pieces,  blazing  in  purple  and  gold,  of  no  great 
beauty  of  form,  but  rich  with  iridescent  lustre. 
And  in  neither  display  was  there  a  single  piece 
of  any  one  of  those  decorative  effects  which  were 
used  by  Romans  of  the  second  century  or  Vene- 
tians or  French  of  the  sixteenth  century  —  so 
vast  is  the  held  of  legitimate  decorative  design 
in  glass  vessels. 

To  all  those  processes  which  are  natural  to  the 
make  and  to  the  nature  of  glass,  there  are  to  be 
added  some  less  approved  processes  which  by 
turns  are  popular.  Thus  glass  can  be  cut,  as  it  is 
called,  by  means  of  a  revolving  wheel,  and  for 
this  purpose  the  glass  is  cast  heavy  and  clear,  of 
the  most  brilliant  material  that  is  obtainable. 
This   is  generally  flint  glass 1  of   which  is  made 


1  Flint  Glass:  glass  which  contains  much  lead;  it  is  heavy  and  has 
great  refracting  power,  which  makes  it  brilliant  in  a  way  resembling  the 
brilliancy  of  rock  crystal. 

[146] 


I 
i 

! 

i 
i 

! 


Fig.   50.     Hanging  Lamp,  eleven  inches  high.     Glass  engraved  with 
acid.     The  chain,  brass,  with  colored  wooden  beads. 
Syrian  work,  uncertain  epoch 


CUT   GLASS   AND   ETCHED  GLASS 


also  that  strass 1  which  is  used  for  imitations  of 
diamonds  and  the  like.  In  cut  glass,  the  surface 
is  often  channelled  with  long  grooves  alternating 
with  ridges ;  by  the  intersection  of  these,  hun- 
dreds of  diamond  points  may  be  produced,  or  stars 
or  triangles,  or  still  more  elaborate  set  patterns. 
By  means  of  the  wheel  is  done  also  engraving 
upon  glass,  and  an  extension  of  this  process  in- 
to a  mere  depolishing  of  the  surface,  so  that  an 
opaque  leaf  or  head  shows  white  upon  the  clear 
ground. 

There  is  also  the  process  of  etching  upon  glass, 
the  acid  being  used  exactly  as  in  etching  upon 
metal,  for  which  see  Chapter  XIX.  The  acid 
used  is  different,  but  the  process  nearly  the  same. 
When  used  in  a  rather  bold  pattern,  as  in  Fig.  50, 
the  result  is  to  produce  a  design  very  slightly 
marked,  of  depolished  glass,  contrasting  with  the 
background,  which  has  the  fall  vitreous  lustre. 
In  the  present  instance  the  color  of  the  whole 
body  of  glass  is  warm  green,  and  the  most  notable 
distinction  between  pattern  and  ground  is  that 
the  latter  is  transparent,  so  that  the  figures  on  the 
opposite  side  are  visible  through  it.  This  process, 
in  some  modern  work,  leaves  upon  the  glass  lines 
of  peculiar  softness  with  a  slightly  glittering  edge, 
unlike  any  other  line  which  is  in  use  in  the  arts. 

1  Strass  :  flint  glass  of  exceptional  refracting  power,  from  which  are 
cut  imitation  gems.  This  is  called  also  "  Paste,"  as  a  term  distinguish- 
ing the  artificial  compound  (French,  pate)  from  the  natural  material. 

[  147  ] 


THE 


V  I T  It  ECUS   A  R  T 


Elaborate  landscapes  and  the  like  are  produced 
in  this  way  in  clear  and  also  in  colored  glass. 
Glass  too  may  be  flashed  ;  that  is,  glass  of  one 

color  may  be  im- 
posed solidly  upon 
glass  white  or  of 
another  color,  the 
two  sheets  being 
really  welded  to- 
gether as  described 
above  in  connection 
with  glass  vessels. 
By  cutting  through 
one  sheet  or  layer 
until  the  other  is 
visible,  a  pattern  of 
peculiar  quality  can 
be  obtained,  com- 
parable to  that 
[  produced  by  cameo- 
cutting  (see  Chap- 
ter XXI).  Finally, 
glass  is  extremely 
susceptible  of  the 
application  of  other  glass  to  its  surface,  when 
cold,  in  the  way  of  enamelling,  as  described 
below.  It  is  in  this  way  that  are  made  the 
magnificent  lamps  and  vases  of  Moslem  origin 
used  in  Syria  and  Egypt.  The  art  is  no  secret 
and  has  been  practised  in   Paris  with  singular 

[  U8] 


Fig.   51.     Enamelled  tumbler 


ENAMELLING   ON   GLASS   AND  METAL 


success  of  late  years,  pieces  being  produced  as 
beautiful  probably  as  anything  in  the  East,  but 
the  designs  are  frankly  Oriental  in  character, 
and  the  finest  pieces  may  even  be  thought  to 
be  close  copies  of  Levantine  originals.  Fig.  5 1 
shows  a  tumbler  made  by  the  most  skilful  of 
these  Parisian  workmen,  and  of  a  design  more 
nearly  original  ;  the  enamel  in  opaque  green 
and  white  is  raised  upon  a  nearly  transparent 
body.  A  lamp  like  that  shown  in  Fig.  50  in 
shape,  but  two  feet  high  and  covered  with  en- 
amelling in  patterns,  with  legends  in  Arabic 
character,  or  a  vase  like  one  or  two  of  Byzantine 
origin  which  still  exist,  may  be  thought  as  splendid 
a  piece  of  decorative  work  as  men  have  imagined 
and  brought  to  completion. 

Enamelling  1  is  applied  to  surfaces  of  metal,  of 
ceramic  ware  of  a  certain  hardness,  and  of  glass. 
The  variety  of  its  uses  is  very  great.  Thus,  the 
dial  of  a  white-faced  watch  is  of  opaque  enamel  on 
a  plate  of  copper  ;  or  if  the  watch  is  an  ornamental 
eighteenth-century  piece,  of  some  fineness,  the  gold 
case  may  have  enamelled  patterns  and  paintings 
applied  to  or  encrusted  2  into  its  outer  surface. 

1  Enamelling :  working  in  or  applying  enamel,  which  is  a  vitreous 
paste  ground  fine,  mixed  with  gum  water  or  a  similar  sticky  medium,  and 
applied  to  the  surface  to  be  decorated,  and  then  fused  in  place  by  the 
heat  of  a  special  furnace. 

2  Encrusted :  let  into  a  surtace,  as  one  piece  of  an  inlav.  The  term 
is  used  especially  for  the  inlaying  of  a  piece  of  sufficient  importance 
to  form  a  design  by  itself;  thus  a  disc  containing  an  enamelled  pattern 

[  H9  ] 


THE    VITREOUS  ART 


Enamelling  on  glass  has  been  mentioned  above, 
(see  Fig.  51),  but  the  connection  between  this  and 
enamelling  on  metal  and  on  pottery  should  be 
kept  in  mind.  It  we  examine  a  piece  of  that 
Chinese  or  Japanese  porcelain  which  is  adorned 
with  green  and  especially  with  red  colors,  "  over- 
glaze,"  we  shall  note  a  bubble-like  surface,  the 
translucent  color  rising  in  a  convex  swell  to  a 
definite  thickness  (see  Chapter  VIII,  Fig  35).  It 
is  exactly  in  this  way  that  the  enamel  looks  which 
has  been  put  upon  glass  and  tired.  In  either  case 
it  is  simply  a  brushtul  of  stiff  color  which  has 
been  fused,  gaining  thereby  a  fixed  consistency, 
extreme  hardness,  and  a  glassy  lustre.  When 
enamel  is  put  upon  metal  the  same  result  follows. 
If  you  take  a  plate  of  pure  silver  and  paint  upon 
it  with  blue  and  green  enamels  held  in  solution  in 
gum  water,  the  surface  of  little  masses  of  the  semi- 
liquid  color  shines  in  a  transparent  sort  of  way, 
and  shows  considerable  refracting  power.  If  this 
piece  of  silver  is  passed  into  the  enamelling  furnace 
and  kept  there  for  six  or  eight  minutes  and  then 
withdrawn,  it  will  often  look  as  if  no  change  had 
taken  place.  The  plate  of  silver  and  the  enamel 
on  it  is  all  so  hot  that  it  would  set  fire  to  a  shav- 
ing of  wood  which  might  touch  it,  but  this  does 
not  appear  ;  the  completed  enamel  looks  very  like 
what  the  still  wet  bubble  was.     It  is,  however,  hard 

mav  be  set  into  a  surface  otherwise  adorned,  and  is  then  said  to  be 
encrusted. 


[  ISO] 


ENAMELLING    ON   GLASS   AND  METAL 


and  durable.  The  reason  why  the  enamels  that 
we  buy,  whether  the  cheap  buckles  and  fan-mounts 
which  come  from  Russia  and  are  made  according 
to  the  year's  fashion,  or  a  priceless  piece  of  Chinese 
work  three  hundred  years  old,  or  a  Byzantine 
book-cover  a  thousand  years  old  —  the  reason  why 
this  does  not  present  the  same  appearance  as  of  a 
series  of  translucent  rounded  surfaces  is  that  those 
bubble-like  masses  have  been  ground  down,  and 
either  polished  to  a  uniform  surface  or  left  with 
a  soft  finish  like  that  of  marble  as  it  is  commonly 
used  in  statuary.  Sometimes,  too,  in  certain  kinds 
of,  enamelling,  the  semi-liquid  matter  has  been 
put  into  a  little  box  or  fenced  enclosure  so  small 
(from  a  quarter  of  an  inch  to  an  inch  in  either 
dimension)  that  the  surface  is  rather  concave,  the 
viscous  liquid  clinging  to  the  little  fence  which 
encloses  the  space  filled  with  enamel,  and  there- 
fore lying  deeper  at  the  edges  than  in  the  middle. 
Some  oriental  enamels  come  to  us  with  this  sur- 
face unaltered.  Enamelling  on  glass  (see  Fig.  5  1 ) 
is  often  of  this  nature,  but  without  the  walls  — 
the  c/oisons,  as  they  are  called  —  the  bubble  of 
liquid  matter  keeps  its  place  sufficiently.  The 
large  subject  of  enamelling  on  metal  is  treated  also, 
in  connection  with  metal  work,  in  Chapter  X. 

The  different  kinds  of  enamelling  are  mainly 
three ;  and  they  must  be  considered  separately. 
There  is,  first,  that  which  covers  the  whole  surface, 
as  in  the  case  of  a  watch  dial  mentioned  above. 

[  151  ] 


THE   VITREOUS  ART 


This  can  be  painted  on,  exactly  as  the  surface  of 
porcelain  or  the  glaze  of  faience  can  be  painted 
on,  and  both  in  the  Orient  and  in  Europe,  espe- 
cially during  the  eighteenth  century,  vessels  and 
other  ornamental  objects  of  considerable  size  have 


Fig.  52.     Tray  about  15  inches  long.     Surface  enamel 

(Marquand  Collection) 

been  made  which  depend  wholly  for  their  effect 
upon  painted  enamel.  Thus  a  Chinese  bowl  or  a 
tray  will  show  a  uniformly  white  surface  covered 
with  the  most  dainty  paintings  of  vines  and  flowers 
or  perhaps  figures  in  bright  costumes,  and  a  land- 
scape background,  all  exactly  as  on  the  porcelain 
vessel,  the  surface  alone  and  the  metal  edges  at  top 
and  bottom  showing  the  difference  of  the  mate- 
rial (see  Fig.  52);  and  in  France  there  are  still 

[  152] 


SURFACE  ENAMELS 

produced,  in  direct  and  natural  evolution  from  the 
pieces  of  the  eighteenth  century,  ornamental  boxes, 
shallow  cups,  and  lamp-stands,  as  well  as  much 
smaller  pieces,  which  are  painted  in  precisely  the 
same  manner  though  with  great  difference  in  style. 
In  fact  one  of  the  most  famous  branches  of  deco- 
rative art  known  to  collectors  of  original  pieces 
consists  of  the  painted  enamels  of  the  sixteenth 
century  known  by  the  general  name  Limoges 
enamels,  as  shown  more  fully  below. 

Translucent  enamel  may  also  be  used  for  the 
whole  surface  of  a  piece,  applied  upon  the  metal 
like  varnish.  Thus  in  Fig.  5^,  the  large  up- 
right flower  and  its  calyx,  and  the  small  blossoms, 
buds,  and  stems  are  all  wrought  in  silver  and 
covered  with  thin  layers  of  enamel,  nearly  trans- 
parent, and  of  very  realistic  coloring  —  purple, 
brown,  and  yellow  of  many  differing  hues. 

Painted  surface  enamels  are  the  most  often  used 
for  decorative  vessels  and  other  pieces  of  consider- 
able size  ;  and  the  smallest  and  finest  examples,  such 
as  portrait  heads  on  a  gold  ground,  are  used  for 
jewelry,  as  to  be  set  in  the  chaton  of  a  ring  or  the 
medallion  ot  a  bracelet.  The  finest  and  largest 
pieces  are  often  framed  like  pictures.  It  is  clear 
that  the  artist  who  works  upon  this  kind  of 
enamel  is  a  painter  in  a  very  difficult  method,  not 
unlike  ceramic  painting. 

The  matter  of  painted  surface  enamel,  as  prac- 
tised in  Europe  in  the  fifteenth  century  and  soon 

[  153] 


THE    VITREOUS  ART 


afterward,  with  imitations  in  later  times,  is  pe- 
culiar in  the  almost  complete  abandonment  of  the 
work  to  one  single   effort,  namely,  that  of  de- 


Fig.  53.     Small  Japanese  vase.     Enamel  on  silver 

veloping  a  complete  system  of  painting  in  white 
upon  black,  or  nearly  black,  ground.  The  finest 
Limoges  enamels  have  this  monochrome  character 
in  the  most  marked  degree,  for  the  use  of  gold, 
which  appears  to  modify  very  much  their  effect 

[  iS4] 


SURFACE  ENAMELS 


as  decorative  design,  is  entirely  superficial,  as  the 
gold  is  added  alter  the  work  is  otherwise  com- 
plete, and  serves  to  furnish  a  few  brilliant  points 
and  to  supply  what  would  seem  to  have  been 
lacking  in  brilliancy,  in  the  blade  of  a  sword,  the 
reins  of  a  horse,  or  the  like.  The  fully  colored 
plaques  are  far  less  attractive,  even  the  priceless 
ones  assigned  to  the  family  of  Penicaud  in  the 
fifteenth  century.  In  these,  the  blue  and  red 
seem  to  have  been  added  in  the  vain  attempt 
to  make  a  color-composition  of  a  gray  mono- 
chrome. This  characteristic  of  the  development 
of  the  painting  in  white  upon  black  is  the 
most  radical  distinction  between  European  sur- 
face enamelling  and  European  porcelain,  in  their 
decorative  tendency.  Such  a  tendency  appears 
in  Oriental  enamels,  too,  although  these  are  very 
commonly  white  in  their  principal  body  and  are 
then  painted  almost  exactly  as  the  white  porce- 
lain is  painted  ;  for,  again,  many  are  of  a  semi- 
transparent  blue  upon  which  the  flowers  and 
scrolls  are  painted  in  opaque  white,  and  even 
where  translucent  green  and  opaque  red  are 
added  to  the  scroll  patterns  or  to  the  touching  of 
the  riowers,  this  seems  to  be  laid  in  every  instance 
upon  the  white.  The  painting  upon  the  surface  of 
enamel  is  therefore  much  more  limited  than  that 
upon  the  surface  offered  by  fine  pottery  or  by  por- 
celain, and  the  taste  for  it  is  more  of  a  technical  ad- 
miration for  the  rare  and  curiouslv  difficult  work. 

[  155  ] 


THE   VITREOUS  ART 


The  second  branch  of  enamelling  is  that  in 
which  the  surface,  usually  or  metal,  is  engraved 
out  or  carved  in  intaglio,  the 
enamelling  rilling  this  sunken 
space,  and  very  commonly 
ground  and  polished  down  to 
an  even  surface  with  the  sur- 


Fig.  54.    Under  side  of 
Indian  bracelet 


rounding  unaltered  metal 


so 


that  the  pattern  shows  in  blue  or 
red  or  in  several  colors  on  the 
gold  or  silver  ground  (see  Fig. 
54).  This  kind  of  enamelling 
is  called  c/iampleve,  that  is,  with 
the  field  apparently  raised,  be- 
cause the  background  is  left  in 
relief  above  the  engraved  or 
sunken  pattern.  One  variety  of 
this  has  the  background  beneath 
the  enamel  carved  or  raised  in 
relief  from  the  bottom  of  the 
sunken  panel,  or  even  adorned 
with  inlay  of  some  sort,  the 
whole  of  this  being  visible 
through  the  enamel,  which  in 
this  case  must  be  translucent, 
or  rather  transparent,  to  show 
the  background  clearly.  If 
this  enamel  be  ruby  red,  or  of 
a  deep  greenish  blue,  through 
which  the  gold  or  silver  ground 
[  156] 


CH AMPLE Vti  ENAMELS 


is  seen  to  be  engraved  more  or  less  deeply,  there 
is  produced  a  pattern  which  shows  in  red  or  blue 
of  differing  intensity,  and  even  of  differing  charac- 
ter, as  the  enamel  is  deeper  or  less  deep.  Fig. 
54  is  an  Indian  bracelet,  the  under  side  of  the 
piece  which  is  shown  in  Chapter  X,  Fig.  64. 
Here  the  larger  part  of  each  little  link  or  boss  is 
transparent  enamel  of  vivid  red,  showing  the  gold 
beneath,  engraved  in  imitation  of  a  gingko  leaf; 
the  red  relieved  by  the  little  white  patches,  which 
are  quite  opaque  ;  there  are  also  touches  of  brilliant 
green  which  seem  to  form  a  calyx  to  the  red  and 
white  flower,  and  again  others  on  the  little  pro- 
jections which  form  the  swivels  or  hinges.  The 
fitness  of  enamel  for  minute  decorative  work  is 
seen  in  this,  for  in  less  than  a  quarter  of  an  inch 
there  are  eight  patches  of  enamel  in  three  differ- 
ent colors,  and  one  hundred  and  five  separate 
bosses  of  this  description  in  the  bracelet.  The 
name,  email  a  plique  is  applied  to  such  enamel 
work  as  this,  —  the  origin  of  that  French  term 
being  in  dispute.  The  name  email  en  basse-taille 
is  given  to  pieces  in  which  the  background  seen 
through  the  enamel  is  carved  in  relief.  The 
name  email  en  taille  d 'epargne  is  applied  to  any 
work  of  champleve  enamel  in  which  very  little 
is  left  of  the  original  metal  surface,  so  that  the 
piece  can  hardly  be  told  from  cloisonne  enamel 
as  described  in  the  next  paragraph.  Champleve 
enamels,   rare   in    Eastern  work,  are    most  used 

[  i57  ] 


THE    VITREOUS  ART 


in  Europe  since  the  Middle  Ages  for  the  adorn- 
ment of  snuff-boxes  (from  1750  to  1820),  patch- 
boxes,  bonbon-boxes,  and  the  like  ;  but  the  bronze 
and  copper  liturgical  metal  work  of  the  years 
before  1500 — shrines,  altar  crosses,  processional 
crosses  —  was  constantly  made  ornamental  in  this 
way. 

The  third  kind  of  enamel  is  what  is  known  as 
cloisonne  —  email  cloisonne;  in  the  plural,  emaux 
cloisonnes.  This  ware  was  originally,  and  still  is  in 
theory,  produced  by  building  up  little  walls  or 
enclosing-strips  of  metal  secured  to  the  background, 
in  the  first  place  lightly,  and  then  more  per- 
manently by  the  heat  of  the  enamelling  furnace 
itself,  and  filling  up  the  little  compartments  so 
produced  by  the  line-ground  enamel  of  different 
colors.  In  this  way  a  mosaic  results,  the  divisions 
of  which  are  separated  one  from  another  by  very 
narrow  bands  of  metal,  which,  when  the  whole 
surface  has  been  ground  down  even,  show  usually 
as  yellow  metallic  lines,  the  metal  being  commonly 
brass  or  gilded  bronze.  Fig.  55  shows  a  candle- 
stick about  fifteen  inches  high  in  which  all  the 
rounded  parts  are  covered  with  a  mosaic  of  enamel 
in  rich  colors  divided  by  partitions  of  notable 
thickness  of  gilded  brass.  The  background  is  of 
a  lighter  and  of  darker  blue  ;  and  there  are  used 
in  the  pattern  a  deep  red,  two  greens,  and  a  vivid 
yellow,  as  well  as  the  two  blues  mentioned  and 
the  gilded  boundary  lines.     This  work  has  hardly 

[  153  ] 


Fig.  55.     Candlestick  of  Chinese  Cloisonne  enamel,  fifteen 
inches  high  ;  seventeenth  century  a.  d. 


CLOISON  N  E   E  N  A  M  ELS 


been  practised  in  Europe  since  the  Byzantine 
period,  and  but  very  tew  pieces  of  it  exist ;  but  in 
the  far  East  it  is  made  in  enormous  quantities,  as 
it  has  been  tor  a  tew  centuries  past,  even  vessels 
for  serving  food  being  made  of  it  ;  and  vessels  ot 
metal  or  ot  porcelain  six  teet  high  and  covered  in 
all  their  parts  with  the  most  elaborate  and  brilliant 
patterns  come  to  us  trom  China  and  Japan  alike. 
In  some  of  the  finest  pieces,  however,  the  color 
overruns  the  boundaries  of  the  little  spaces  re- 
served for  it  and  in  a  very  curious  way  the  tints 
are  softened  by  this  slight  mingling  of  one  with 
the  other.  It  is  hard  to  say  how  far  this  is  de- 
liberate, —  it  looks  sometimes  as  if  mere  indiffer- 
ence had  caused  it,  —  but  the  Chinese  are  such 
consummate  masters  of  this  craft  that  it  is  more 
probable  that  a  temporary  exaggeration  of  the 
whim  for  softness  or  lack  of  definition  has  given 
the  careless  appearance  referred  to. 

On  the  other  hand  a  modern  development  of 
the  art  is  in  the  direction  of  using  partitions  of 
extreme  fineness  ;  no  longer  of  about  a  thirty- 
second  ot  an  inch  thick  (or  wide  on  the  surtace) 
as  in  the  ancient  Chinese  pieces,  but  as  thin  as 
hairs  ;  and  these  not  boldly  separating  the  colors 
one  trom  another,  but  disappearing  at  intervals  as 
it  some  of  them  had  been  withdrawn  betore  the 
color  was  quite  hardened  in  the  tire.  The  result 
ot  this  is  to  produce  a  surface  more  nearly  resem- 
bling that  of  painted  porcelain  or  of  painted  sur- 

[  159] 


THE    VITREOUS  ART 


face  enamel  than  of  cloisonne.  The  pieces  that 
have  been  exported  from  Japan  since  1885  are 
often  of  this  character,  but  lovers  of  Oriental 
art  and  industry  do  not  often  find  these  pieces 
attractive. 

One  variety  of  cloisonne  enamel  comes  with- 
out a  solid  background.  It  is,  of  course,  built 
up  on  a  metal  plate,  but  it  is  not  made  fast  to 
that ;  and  the  only  strength  of  the  sheet  of  enamel 
mosaic  with  metal  divisions  —  a  sheet  perhaps 
one  thirty-second  of  an  inch  thick,  comes  from 
mere  adhesiveness.  This,  if  made  of  translucent 
enamel  and  polished  on  both  sides,  is  a  beautiful 
transparent  plate,  which  is  called  a  piece  of  email 
a  plique  a  jour,  and  little  cups  have  been  made  in 
this  way  by  still  living  Frenchmen,  while  jewels 
so  made  are  not  uncommon.  Cloisonne  enamel 
is  sometimes  brought  from  China  in  large  flat 
plaques  probably  intended  for  the  doors  of  cabinets 
of  unusual  splendor,  which  pieces  of  furniture  are 
often  built  of  wood  with  only  certain  incrusta- 
tions, and  the  movable  doors  of  another  material. 
A  similar  use  of  the  process  is  seen  in  the  flat 
book-covers  of  the  Byzantine  manuscripts.  By 
far  the  greater  number  of  pieces  are  copper  and 
brass  vessels  of  which  the  surface  is  wholly  or 
partly  adorned  with  the  enamel.  An  iron  tea- 
kettle will  have  a  cover  with  a  brass  knop,  the 
whole  nearly  flat  outer  surface  of  the  cover  en- 
amelled in  three  or  four  colors  with  the  metal 

[  160] 


COLORED  GLASS 


FOR 


W  I N  D  O  W  S 


lines  marking  the  pattern.  The  larger  vessels 
are  sometimes  entirely  covered  with  enamel, 
nothing  of  the  metal  showing  but  the  thin  separat- 
ing lines  and  the  slightly  wider  bands  of  brass  at 
the  lip  and  the  foot  ;  and  these  are  usually  the 
finest  pieces,  at  least  from  the  art  student's  point 
of  view,  the  beauty  of  their  sombre  harmony  in 
blue  and  green  with  but  slight  relief  of  deep  red 
and  vivid  yellow  being  unmatched,  except  by  a 
few  Persian  carpets,  in  all  the  range  of  abstract 
color  decoration.  Very  many  of  the  large  and 
costly  pieces  are  completed  by  a  great  display  of 
gilded  brass  at  the  knop  of  the  cover,  the  handles 
and  feet  of  the  vase  and  other  parts  of  the  frame 
which  are  allowed  to  show  and  which  are  enriched 
with  chased  or  engraved  patterns. 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  use  of  glass  pre- 
pared for  decorative  windows.  The  primary  neces- 
sity of  this  glass  is  delicate  and  sometimes  rich 
coloring,  as  the  purpose  of  what  is  called  a  "stained- 
glass  "  window  is  architectural  decoration.  The 
secondary  purpose,  that  of  containing  a  significant 
design,  as,  in  church  windows,  a  sacred  scene,  per- 
sonage, or  emblem,  is  fulfilled  partly  bv  the  com- 
bination of  the  different  pieces  of  different  colors 
exactly  as  in  mosaic  work  (see  Chapter  XVIII), 
but  also  in  part  by  the  painting  of  the  separate 
pieces  of  glass.  This  manner  of  treating  glass 
was  carried  to  very  great  lengths  in  the  later 
Middle  Ages.    From  the  twelfth  century  on,  win- 

VOL.  I  —  II  [    1  6  I  ] 


THE 


VITREOUS  ART 


dows  in  churches  were  enriched  by  colored  glass, 
and  in  the  thirteenth  century,  in  consequence  of 
the  introduction  of  ribbed  vaulting  and  the  en- 
largement of  the  window  space  in  the  Gothic  style 
to  an  enormous  comparative  size  (see  Chapter 
XXVI),  the  demand  for  "storied  windows"  be- 
came eager.  The  painting  was  mainly  of  the  nature 
of  stopping  out  the  light  or  obscuring  the  piece  of 
glass,  and  rendering  it  opaque  ;  but,  by  means 
of  thinning  out  the  opaque  color,  a  semi-trans- 
lucency  was  obtained,  and  by  shading  with  thin 
lines  a  similar  effect  with  more  brilliancy  could  be 
secured.  The  color  of  this  opaque  painting  was  al- 
most indifferent  ;  it  was  usually  a  dark  brown,  the 
pigment  chosen  having  been  evidently  that  which 
was  most  easily  obtained  in  considerable  quantities 
and  most  easily  and  perfectly  fused  ;  for  all  this 
painting  is  of  course  fired  in  the  furnace  exactly  as 
the  painting  on  pottery  or  enamelling  on  glass  is 
treated.  In  the  sixteenth  century  there  was  in- 
troduced a  translucent  enamel  of  a  beautiful  pale 
yellow,  and  this  "  silver  stain "  was  so  eagerly 
seized  by  the  artists  of  the  time  that  the  already 
changing  character  of  chromatic  windows  was 
rapidly  modified  into  something  quite  different 
from  the  mediaeval  type.  It  became  common  to 
make  designs  in  uncolored  glass  set  in  leaden 
sash-bars,  which  glass  however,  was  not  per- 
fectly translucent,  but  was  of  a  more  or  less 
yellowish  gray,  and   upon   this  the   silver  stain 

[  162] 


COLORED 


GLASS 


F  O  R 


WIN  DO  WS 


made  beautiful  patterns.  It  was  feasible  to  put 
in  the  middle  of  such  a  field  of  gray  and  yellow, 
nearly  transparent,  a  strongly  colored  figure  such 
as  a  portrait  or  the  effigy  of  a  saint,  made  of 
richer  colored  glass  more  or  less  strongly  painted 
in  parts  ;  and  such  windows,  though  not  perfectly 
successful  according  to  our  ideas  of  good  taste, 
were  in  use  for  at  least  a  century  in  what  we 
consider  the  most  artistic  epoch  of  modern  times. 
The  composition  of  the  colored  window  and  the 
various  devices  by  means  of  which  one  color  re- 
invests or  modifies  another  one  are  treated  in 
Chapter  XVIII. 

Glass  of  perfect  purity  and  transparency  is  unfit 
for  decorative  windows,  as  was  found  to  be  true 
when  the  workmen  of  1850  and  thereafter  tried 
to  make  fine  windows  for  their  decorative  churches. 
New  glass  had  to  be  made  in  deliberate  imitation 
of  the  old,  with  bubbles,  with  irregularity  of  thick- 
ness or  of  tint.  Later,  when  certain  American 
artists  undertook  a  farther  advance  in  translucent 
color  design,  glass  was  made  for  them  of  a  richness 
and  variety  of  tone  never  before  produced.  This 
enabled  the  designer  to  work  in  pure  mosaic,  the 
patch  of  glass  containing  in  itself  all  gradations  of 
color  and  light  that  could  be  desired.  It  is  only 
the  faces,  the  hands,  the  actual  nude  parts  of  a 
figure  subject  which  cannot  be  left  unpainted : 
(see  Chapter  XVIII). 


[  163  ] 


Chapter  Ten 


METAL  WORK 

MANY  different  manual  arts  are  used 
in  connection  with  the  different 
metals.  A  coin,  a  cast-iron  cannon 
or  pot,  a  wrought-steel  key,  a  rolled- 
steel  rail,  a  cast  and  chiselled  bronze  statuette,  a 
hammered  copper  pot  with  patterns  raised  in 
relief,  are  so  different  in  method  of  work  and 
in  results  that  this  chapter  deals  with  many 
differing  arts  rather  than  a  single  art  in  different 
developments. 

Metal  is  used  in  both  construction  and  decora- 
tion, —  the  constructional  work,  with  which  we 
have  not  to  concern  ourselves  here,  being  almost 
entirely  of  cast  iron  and  wrought  iron.  It  is  one 
of  the  misfortunes  attendant  upon  modern  archi- 
tectural practice  that  the  very  material  which  makes 
up  the  constructional  framework  of  the  largest 
undertakings  in  the  United  States,  and  which  is 
much  used  everywhere,  is  incapable  of  decorative 
treatment  when  so  used,  except  in  occasional 
instances,  and  that  for  two  reasons  :  first,  the  com- 
parative hardness  of  the  metal  and  its  consequent 

[  164] 


CLASSIFICATION 


unfitness  to  receive  ornamental  forms,  either  in 
the  handling  of  each  separate  piece  or  in  the 
combination  of  the  pieces  ;  and  second,  the  neces- 
sity of  covering  and  protecting  it  from  dampness 
(as  by  paint),  and  more  essentially  from  the  possible 
danger  of  fire.  Wrought  iron  is  indeed  fit  for  the 
most  elaborate  artistic  treatment  ;  but  when  so 
treated  it  is  hardly  ever  constructional  in  its  ap- 
plication. When  used  for  the  essential  parts  of  a 
building,  wrought  iron  and  cast  iron  alike  must 
be  covered  up  ;  indeed  the  building  laws  of  some 
modern  cities  forbid  positively  the  use  of  con- 
structional iron  work  without  a  complete  enclos- 
ing of  every  part  of  it  with  brick  work,  terra 
cotta,  and  the  like  ;  and  in  those  cities  where  these 
laws  do  not  exist,  because  of  the  rarity  of  danger- 
ous fires,  they  are  sure  to  be  introduced  as  iron- 
framed  buildings  become  more  common.  On  the 
whole,  then,  constructional  iron-work  is  of  but 
little  importance  in  the  examination  we  are  now 
conducting,  except  as  it  may  be  found  to  affect 
the  problems  of  general  design  in  architecture 
(see  Chapter  XXVI). 

Decorative  metal  work  is,  then,  divisible  into, 
first,  that  which  is  cast,  and  usually  afterwards 
chased,  chiselled,  filed,  and  surface-finished  in  one 
or  in  all  these  ways ;  second,  that  which  is 
wrought  by  the  hammer,  beaten  to  very  thin 
plates,  or  beaten  out  into  bars,  strips,  or  rods, 
which  themselves  may  be  at  their  extremities  or 

[  165] 


METAL   WO  R K 


elsewhere  beaten  out  into  leafage  or  the  like ; 
third,  that  which  is  drawn  into  very  fine  wire  or 
thin  narrow  strips  and  then  twisted  and  soldered 
into  the  patterns  of  what  we  call  filigree  ;  fourth, 
that  which  is  struck  as  a  coin  is  struck,  powerfully 
compressed  into  a  die  of  harder  material.  Under 
the  first  of  these  categories  come  nearly  all  the 
bronze  work  and  a  great  part  of  goldsmiths'  work, 
silversmiths'  work,  and  some  little  work  in  iron. 
Under  the  second  head  is  repousse 1  work  and  all 
that  goes  with  it,  namely,  the  chasing  back  or 
hammering  back  of  the  surface  together  with  so 
much  engraving  or  cutting  away  of  small  parts  as 
may  be  called  for;  and  also  wrought-iron  work  in 
the  usual  sense.  Under  the  fourth  head  come  all 
coins,  medals,  and  medallions  except  those  that 
are  cast :  but  the  artistic  part  of  this  work  is  to  be 
considered  under  Die  Sinking  in  Chapter  XXI. 
In  like  manner  enamelling,  niello-work,  damas- 
cening, and  engraving  may  be  considered  rather 
as  work  done  upon  metal  as  a  foundation  or 
background  than  as  metal  work  proper.  Work 
in  wire,  and  all  that   done  by  "  spinning "  and 

1  Repousse  work :  that  which  is  beaten  up,  usually  from  the  wrong 
side,  into  relief.  The  artist  holds  the  plate  in  a  firm  vise  or  pair  of 
pincers,  and  looks  at  the  right  side  of  it.  The  hammer  is  fixed  firmly  to 
the  work  bench  and  has  the  head  and  long  handle  or  rod  of  metal  either 
in  one  piece  or  with  the  head  screwed  fast  and  firmlv  to  the  rod.  The 
assistant  (usually)  keeps  this  hammer  in  a  state  of  vibration,  the  head 
continually  striking  the  underside  of  the  plate,  the  artist  moving  the  plate 
about  and  watching  the  gradually  changing  form  of  the  relief  which  is 
thus  produced. 

[  166] 


H  A  M  MERE!)   W  O  R  K 


—  CAS  T  WORK 


drawing  with  rollers  may  be  disregarded  here. 
Artistic  work  is  possible  in  each  of  these  ways, 
but  is  rare. 

As  to  metal  work  that  is  cast  before  being 
finished,  the  most  important  of  this  is  the  bronze 
work  which  has  always  gone  side  by  side  with 
carving  in  marble  and  other  hard  materials,  and 
has  with  it  been  the  principal  material  for  sculp- 
ture. Originally,  bronze  is  cast  in  a  mould  which 
has  been  made  in  pieces  upon  the  model  furnished 
by  the  sculptor,  or  upon  a  plaster  cast  from  this 
model  which  will  furnish  a  harder  surface.  A 
bust  may  require  that  the  mould  be  made  in  seven 
pieces  ;  a  statue  or  statuette  will  have  a  mould  in 
twenty  pieces  or  more,  and  where  these  pieces 
join  there  is  a  ridge  left  in  each  casting  which  is 
made  from  their  conjunction  —  from  their  putting 
together  into  a  single  hollow  matrix. 

These  ridges  have  to  be  filed  down  by  hand, 
and  this  leads  to  finishing  with  files  over  a  large 
part  of  the  surface  of  the  casting,  which  finishing 
may  seriously  injure  the  piece  as  an  artistic  con- 
ception, or,  if  carefully  watched  by  the  artist,  may 
tend  even  to  its  further  refinement.  This  is  the 
usual  process,  as  has  been  said,  and  the  mould  is 
taken  apart  after  each  casting  has  hardened,  and 
put  together  again  for  the  making  of  another  cast- 
ing. With  proper  care,  therefore,  many  pieces 
may  be  made  which  will  be  practically  close  repe- 
titions each  of  all  the  others.     In  fact,  even  in 

[  167  ] 


MET  A  I.  WORK 


modern  commercial  industry,  the  bronzes  turned 
out  by  a  first-rate  firm  in  Paris  or  Vienna  may  be 
assumed  to  be  accurate  copies  of  the  model,  the 
somewhat  interior  interest  which  such  pieces 
possess  being  perhaps  traceable  to  the  reducing 
process  by  the  extraordinary  machine  referred  to 
elsewhere,  and  partly  to  modifications  introduced 
in  the  model  itself  in  order  to  allow  of  more  rapid 
and  cheaper  reproduction.  It  is  not  meant  here 
to  imply  that  such  changing  is  at  all  the  general 
practice ;  but  the  assured  fact  that  the  polished 
dark  brown  bronzes  for  sale  at  high  prices  and 
which  pass  as  reproductions  of  modern  statuary, 
are  so  often  unsatisfactory  may  be  explained  in 
this  way.  Where  a  bronze  is  held  by  the  artist 
and  is  reproduced  only  as  orders  for  copies  come 
to  him  or  his  agent,  the  fiftieth  reproduction 
would  naturally  be  as  good  as  the  first,  and  there 
are  bronze  foundries  which  pride  themselves  on 
the  possession  of  a  certain  number  of  models  of 
fine  work  which  they  engage  to  reproduce  with 
absolute  fidelity.  Where  it  is  intended  to  pro- 
duce many  copies,  and  at  rather  low  prices,  it 
becomes  essential  that  the  mass  should  be  simple, 
the  moulding  and  casting  easy  to  bring  out  aright, 
the  finishing  processes  quickly  done  with.  It  is 
therefore  natural  that  the  tradesman  should  select 
a  simply  formed  original,  or,  if  a  more  elaborate 
one  be  in  demand,  that  he  should  work  from  a 
modified  copy  of  the  original. 

[  168  ] 


BRONZE  CASTING 


When,  however,  only  one  copy  in  metal  cast- 
ing is  needed,  the  mould  need  not  be  made  in  so 
many  pieces,  but  in  enough  pieces  only  to  ensure 
safe  removal  once,  and  satisfactory  putting  together 
again  once,  only.     This  difference  may  not  be  so 
very  great ;   it  may  take  nearly  as  many  pieces 
in  this  case  as  where  many  copies  are  proposed. 
There  is,  however,  another   plan  sometimes  fol- 
lowed  from   which   extraordinary   results  come, 
namely,  the  casting  from  a  mould  which  is  made 
in  one  piece  around  the  model.     This,  of  course, 
involves  the  breaking  up  of  the  model,  or  at  least 
of  that  plaster  cast  of  the  original  model  upon 
which  the  mould   has   been   made ;   and  it  also 
involves  the  complete  and  unerring  cleaning  out 
of  every   groove,   crease  and   depression   of  the 
mould,  which  should  appear  in  the  casting  as  a 
ridge  or  projection.     On  account  of  the  extreme 
difficulty  of  securing  these  results  the  following 
method   is  used ;    the  model  or  its  reproduction 
is  completed  as   to  its  surface,  not  with  plaster, 
but  with  wax,  which,  however,  as  it  is  finally 
left  is  hard  enough  to  allow  of  the  mould  being 
made  upon  it   as  upon  the  plaster   itself.  This 
mould  once  completed  and  set  hard  and  dry,  the 
clay  or  plaster  of  the  model  within  is  broken  up, 
while  the  workmen  are  quite  aware  that  much 
of  the  wax  remains  in  the  smaller  subdivisions  of 
the  inner  surface  of  the  mould.     This  is  driven 
out  by  heat,  and   the  mould  thoroughly  dried ; 

[  169] 


M E  T A  L  WORK 


inlets  called  "  ingates,"  and  air  holes  are  prepared 
in  the  substance  of  the  mould:  the  melted  metal 
is  let  in ;  and  the  bronze  fills  the  mould,  solid  and 
perfect.  This  process,  known  as  the  "  lost  wax 
process"  {fonte  a  cire  perdue)  is  rarely  used  in 
European  communities  and  in  recent  times,  but 
extraordinary  results  in  the  way  of  surface  model- 
ling are  possible  to  it,  and  a  few  foundries  of  the 
present  day  undertake  to  carry  it  out  even  on  a 
large  scale.  The  results  are  sometimes  very  sur- 
prising, and  there  are  bronze  vases  from  Japan, 
mostly  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  nineteenth  cen- 
turies, in  which  the  highly  elaborated  surface 
ornamentation,  partly  undercut  and  all  in  ex- 
traordinary forms  of  relief,  leave  the  student  in 
doubt  how  far  what  he  sees  is  the  direct  result 
of  casting  by  the  wax  process  and  how  far  it  has 
been  wrought  with  the  tool,  carved  exactly  as  if 
the  substance  were  wood  (see  Fig.  56). 

The  great  statues  of  antiquity,  the  important 
groups  with  whose  fame  ancient  history  is  filled, 
the  immortal,  idealized  figures  which  to  the  an- 
cients must  have  meant  Apollo  and  Bacchus,  were 
commonly  of  bronze,  the  marble  statues  with 
which  our  galleries  are  filled  being  very  often 
copies  from  these  bronzes,  sometimes  of  second- 
rate  quality  and  intended  rather  for  the  decoration 
of  gardens  and  porticos  than  for  the  temple,  or 
such  other  place  where  the  consummate  work  of 
art  was  called  for.     For  bronze  statuary  and  the 

[  170  J 


BRONZE  CASTING 


like,  as  a  part  of  the  general  subject  of  sculpture, 
see  Chapter  XXIV. 


turtles  separate 

The  number  of  important  statues  in  the  great 
davs  of  Grecian  art  was  indeed  enormous,  such 
pieces  being  numerous  in  all  the  important  centres 
of  Greek  civilization ;  but  under  the  Roman 
Imperial  dominion  the  number  was  vastly  greater, 

[171] 


METAL  WORK 


the  old  pieces  being  preserved  (for  as  yet  no 
wasteful  and  destructive  break  in  the  growth  of 
civilization  had  come  upon  the  antique  world) 
and  new  ones  being  constantly  added  to  meet 
the  irresistible  demands  of  the  Imperial  system. 
When  it  is  said  that  there  were  more  statues  in 
Imperial  Rome  than  there  were  living  men  mov- 
ing in  her  streets  we  are  to  think  of  the  hundreds 
of  sculptures  which  give  rise  to  the  saying  as 
consisting  in  large  part  of  bronze  pieces  ;  perhaps 
we  are  to  think  of  them  as  being  one-third  at 
least  in  this  more  precious  material.  Of  all  this 
vast  array,  including  many  thousands  of  life-size 
and  larger  statues,  many  groups  of  heroic  or 
colossal  size,  and  an  indefinitely  larger  number 
of  statuettes,  figures  of  animals,  and  other  highly 
decorative  and  artistic  pieces  —  of  all  this  vast 
accumulation  of  wealth,  in  which  the  provincial 
cities  of  the  empire  were  second  only  to  Rome, 
the  pieces  that  remain  are  so  few  that  with  the 
exception  of  a  single  museum  Europe  may  be  said 
to  be  without  them.  Disregarding  for  the  mo- 
ment that  one  exception,  there  remain,  of  larger 
pieces,  the  noble  Victory  of  Brescia,  the  two  some- 
what less  important  pieces  in  the  Etruscan  Mu- 
seum at  Florence,  and  the  "  Praying  Boy "  at 
Berlin,  whose  attitude  is  uncertain  because  the 
arms  are  modern.  Memory  of  a  few  other  bronze 
statues  is  preserved  by  the  heads  cut  from  them, 
and  afterward  mounted  as  busts,  like  one  at  Con- 

[  *72  ] 


^jt^-'lA^fcsani  .lift 


Fig.   57.     Bronze  Bust,  life  size,  apparently  cut  from  a  statue,  formerly 
called  "Plato,"  now,  rather,  Dionysos.     Found  in  Villa 
at  Herculaneum.     Naples,  Museo  Nazionale 


bkon/i: 


IN 


ANTIQUITY 


stantinople,  and  several  at  Naples,  including  the 
subject  of  Figure  57.  The  reason  for  this  rarity  is, 
of  course,  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  metal  ;  the 
bronze  statues  were  melted  by  the  barbarians  of 
the  fifth  century  and  turned  directly  into  coins 
or  in  other  ways  put  to  immediate  mercantile 
use.  But  the  soft  rock  which  covers  Herculaneum 
covered  also  tor  seventeen  centuries  a  certain  villa 
just  outside  of  the  ancient  city,  and  from  this  villa 
have  been  brought  up  the  bronzes,  large  and 
small,  which  fill  a  series  of  three  square  halls 
in  the  Naples  Museum.  Here  are  seven  por- 
trait statues,  some  larger  than  life ;  eleven  ideal 
statues,  as  of  Muses,  divinities,  draped  dancing 
maidens  of  decorative  purpose,  and  eighteen  life- 
size  busts:  see  Figs.  57  and  58.  Besides  these  su- 
premely important  pieces  there  are  statuettes  by 
scores,  and  as  the  catalogues  tell  us,  with  those 
from  the  Herculaneum  villa  are  mingled  those 
from  Pompeii,  where,  although  no  important 
large  works  of  sculpture  were  found,  many  minor 
works  remained  and  many  must  still  remain  in  the 
yet  unexplored  houses.  Thus,  the  European  mu- 
seums taken  together  possess  perhaps  forty  large 
pieces  of  antique  bronze,  two  hundred  or  more 
statuettes  or  the  like,  and  thousands  of  orna- 
mental and  admirably  designed  utensils,  bowls, 
pots,  kitchen  utensils  even,  into  the  design  of 
which  something  decorative,  something  really 
effective  has  been  allowed  to  enter ;   and  much 

[  173  ] 


METAL  WORK 


the  greater  part  of  this  wealth  has  come  out  of 
the  provincial  city  of  Pompeii,  and  that  one  villa 
at  Herculaneum.  It  is  evident,  then,  that  we 
know  only  a  small,  a  very  small  handful  out  of 
a  vast  accumulation.  It  is  probable  that  a  little 
more  excavation  at  Herculaneum  would  bring 
to  light  more  large  and  important  bronzes  than 
are  now  above  ground.  The  modern  world  has 
never  used  bronze  with  such  freedom  ;  but  then 
the  modern  world,  since  it  emerged  from  the 
poverty  and  distress  of  the  Middle  Ages,  has  had 
something  else  to  do  than  to  pursue  artistic  de- 
velopment. The  magnificent  decorations  of  the 
Mediterranean  cities  of  antiquity  can  hardly  be 
realized  by  one  who  has  not  spent  days  upon  the 
spot  trying  to  set  up  in  their  ancient  standing- 
places  the  many  hundred  pieces  of  more  portable 
art  among  the  perished  buildings  of  which  only 
ruined  fragments  recall  the  former  existence. 
Sociologists  tell  us  that  it  was  one  of  the  reasons 
for  the  fall  of  the  Imperial  system  and  of  the 
Roman  civilization,  one  of  the  reasons  why  that 
magnificent  entity,  the  empire  of  the  whole  Med- 
iterranean world,  passed  away  and  was  succeeded 
by  eight  hundred  years  of  hideous  misery  and 
slow  struggling  out  of  the  blackest  barbarism  — 
the  fact  that  the  industry  of  the  empire  was  not 
a  wealth-producing  industry.  The  employment 
of  great  hosts  of  workmen  in  rearing  the  gigantic 
thermae,  amphitheatres,  colonnades,  Imperial  fora 

[  174] 


Fig.   58.     Bronze  Bust,  life  size,  apparently  a  portrait,  found  in  Villa 
at  Herculaneum.     Naples,  Muzeo  Nazionale 


THE   LOSS   OF   ANTIQUE  ART 


and  temples  with  their  adjuncts,  is  to  he  set  down 
as,  from  the  economic  point  of  view,  a  waste  of 
the  public  wealth  ;  all  these  magnificent  works, 
however  precious  to  the  mind  of  the  student  of 
architectural  and  other  fine  art,  were  not  in  the 
way  of  causing  a  further  growth  of  national  or 
municipal  prosperity.  So  far  as  they  might  at- 
tract persons  from  other  cities  or  other  lands, 
well  ;  but  this  was  a  mere  shifting  of  the  ground. 
Take  these  considerations,  then,  as  the  one  conso- 
lation to  the  world  for  the  absence,  since  the 
fourth  century,  of  any  such  living  impulse  toward 
the  decoration  of  cities,  and  the  use  for  such 
decoration  of  the  noblest  possible  works  of  fine 
art,  —  it  will  be  found  hard  for  him  who  has 
once  learned  to  love  the  fine  arts  in  their  highest 
development  to  feel  other  than  a  bitter  regret  for 
the  unskilful  political  management  of  the  great 
empire,  which  allowed  Greco-Roman  civilization 
to  be  destroyed,  and  to  disappear  as  fuel  burns  in 
a  fire,  taking  with  it  in  its  destruction  even  the 
apparently  indestructible  monuments  of  its  greatest 
prosperity.  It  has  been  the  business  of  the  last 
forty  years  to  unlearn  the  error  which  former 
writers,  ignoring  the  monuments  themselves  and 
misunderstanding  the  written  texts  left  us  by  an- 
tiquity, had  taught  about  the  art  world  of  Greco- 
Roman  times,  —  of  the  years  from  500  B.C.  to 
400  a.  d.,  —  but  meanwhile,  even  as  this  study  has 
been  going  on,  many  of  those  monuments  have 

[  175] 


M  E  T  A  L 


W  0  R  K 


been  destroyed  or  restored  out  of  recognition  ; 
and  although  this  ruinous  double  course  of  change 
has  been  partly  arrested,  we  have  still  to  lament 
the  loss  in  our  own  time  of  several  of  the  most 
important  relics  of  second-century  and  third- 
century  fine-art. 

Of  all  this  splendid  art  the  bronze  work  was,  as 
has  been  said,  the  most  important  of  which  we 
can  form  any  accurate  conception.  For  the 
paintings  of  Greece  have  disappeared  so  com- 
pletely that  only  the  poor  imitations  of  them  in 
Pompeian  houses  and  in  two  or  three  Roman 
dwellings  serve  to  give  us  any  idea  of  the  larger 
and  more  important  of  the  world-famous  works 
of  mural  art ;  and  pottery,  important  as  is  that  of 
the  Greek  lands,  does  not  embody  so  lofty  a  sys- 
tem of  thought  in  art  as  does  the  metal  work.  It 
has  always  seemed  to  the  writer  that  not  enough 
attention  is  paid  to  the  Hall  of  the  Great  Bronzes 
at  Naples,  for  there,  more  than  in  any  other 
room  in  the  world,  is  to  be  found  concentrated 
a  collection  of  very  good  classical  sculpture  and 
none  that  is  not  very  good.  There  is  one  of 
the  two  great  bodies  of  Greco-Roman  sculpture 
as  preserved  for  us.  The  only  place  in  Europe 
where  one  or  several  closely  adjacent  rooms 
can  give  anything  of  equal  importance  is  in 
the  two  museums  at  Athens,  where  the  relief 
sculpture  of  Greece  is  to  be  found.  The  bronze 
statues  are  in  Naples,  the  marble  reliefs  are  in 

[  i?6] 


THE   NATURE   OF   FINE   ART   IN  BRONZE 


Athens  —  that  is  not  a  surprising  nor  an  unreason- 
able result  to  come  of  the  remoter  and  of  the 
more  immediate  past,  but  it  is  between  these  two 
centres  of  study  that  the  ardent  lover  of  art  should 
make  frequent  and  rapid  journeys. 

The  work  of  the  artist  in  bronze  is  chiefly  in 
the  preparation  of  the  original  model  (see  Chap- 
ters IV  and  XXIV).  All  else  is  rather  the  work 
of  the  skilled  mechanic  ;  except  where  there  is 
question  of  coloring  the  bronze,  and  this  also  is 
mechanical  except  as  the  artist  has  to  decide  upon 
the  color  to  be  given  to  his  casting,  and  whether 
that  color  shall  be  uniform  or  varied  with  grada- 
tions and  cloudings.  The  people  of  the  far  East 
take  great  pleasure  in  giving  varied  and  decorative 
coloring  to  their  bronzes,  every  piece  being  in- 
dividual and  designed  for  itself  in  this  respect : 
and  European  artists  have  enjoyed  the  coloring 
of  their  own  productions  in  the  same  way,  choos- 
ing generally  the  smaller  and  less  important  pieces. 

It  will  be  noted,  then,  that  the  work  of  the 
artist  and  that  of  the  skilled  artificer  are  very 
closely  allied  in  bronze  work,  —  the  distinction 
being  merely  the  universal  one  between  him  who 
has  the  artistic  thought  and  him  who  aids  its 
expression. 

Iron  has  been  used  in  a  similar  way  to  bronze, 
though  very  rarely.  There  is  great  difficulty  in 
obtaining  a  clean  and  perfect  casting,  and  the 
metal  is  too  hard  for  easy  finishing  of  the  surface. 

VOL.  I           12  [l77] 


METAL  WORK 


There  are  a  few  important  monuments  in  India  ; 
and  the  once  famous  Berlin  iron-work,  dating  from 
the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  is  an 
instance  of  what  may  be  done  with  minute  cast- 


Fig.   59.     Cast-iron  medallion.     Early  nineteenth  century 

ings  made  with  special  care  and  probably  under 
pressure  :  see  Fig.  59. 

In  all  this  work  done  by  casting  metal,  the 
chief  labor  and  thought  of  the  artist  goes  into 
the  making  of  the  model  upon  which  the  moulds 
are  formed.  This  process  of  modelling  is  con- 
sidered in  Chapter  IV.     The  metal-worker  comes 

[178] 


ARTISTICAL 


GOLDSMITH'S  WORK 


to  help  only  when  the  moulds  themselves  have  to 
be  made:  but  then  his  skilled  mechanical  eye  and 
hand  are  needed,  together  with  all  the  artistic 
sense  that  he  has  gained.  And  finally,  the  riling 
and  chasing  and  polishing  which  go  on  in  the 
search  for  the  perfected  form  in  the  finished  sur- 
face, is  the  most  refined  sort  of  metal  work. 

Metal  work  done  by  hammering  and  subsequent 
finishing  is  used  where  lightness  is  desirable  and 
thinness  admissible  —  where  the  metal  is  precious 
and  to  be  used  sparingly  —  and  where  the  free 
handling  of  the  hammer-man  appeals  to  the 
artist's  thought  more  than  does  the  slow  work 
of  the  finisher.  Thus,  if  a  vase  is  to  be  adorned 
in  relief,  the  substance  being  a  thin  plate  of  silver, 
the  pattern  will  be  raised  by  the  snarling  iron  1  and 
then  the  vessel  will  be  put  together,  at  least  tem- 
porarily. The  whole  interior  is  then  filled  with 
pitch  or  some  such  material  which  can  be  melted 
and  poured  in  and  which  when  it  hardens  does 
not  shrink  appreciably.  Against  this  solid  though 
yielding  mass  the  plate  may  be  pressed  by  the 
workman  without  losing  its  form  ;  and  this  en- 
ables him  to  use  the  chasing  tool  on  the  relief 
already  in  existence,  pressing  it  back  here  and 
there,  subdividing  and  giving  definition  to  the 
pattern,  touching  up  the  edges  of  the  leaves,  giv- 
ing in  this  way  character  and   sharpness   to  the 

1  Snarling  iron :  The  ancient  name  of  the  hammer  described  under 
Repousse  Work. 

[  179] 


METAL  WORK 

design,  and  in  some  cases  cutting  away  the  metal 
very  decidedly,  so  that  little  shavings  come  off  from 
it  much  as  in  the  case  of  engraving.  By  means 
of  repousse  work,  finished  afterwards  with  the 
chasing  tool,  are  made  also  decorative  plaques  in 
copper  and  other  soft  metals  and  alloys,  and  also 
what  seems  impossible,  minute  and  delicate  works 
in  steel.  For  this  purpose  the  steel  has  to  be 
softened,  which  is  done  by  heating  it  and  allow- 
ing it  to  cool  slowly,  and  this  perhaps  several  times 
before  the  piece  becomes  soft  enough  for  the  best 
handling  ;  it  is  tempered  1  after  the  work  is  com- 
plete. This  work  has  been  done  in  modern  times 
and  with  great  success,  at  least  as  to  technical 
excellence ;  an  artist  named  Virtue  being  espe- 
cially known  in  connection  with  large  decorative 
pieces  made  in  this  way.  The  culmination  of 
the  artistic  work  of  this  kind  in  the  harder  metals 
was  in  the  highly  adorned  armor  of  the  sixteenth 
century  and  the  early  years  of  the  century  follow- 
ing. The  famous  suit  of  armor  once  belonging 
to  Henry  II  of  France,  which  has  been  in  the 
Louvre  for  many  years  and  is  exhibited  in  the 
Gallery  of  Apollo,  is  only  one  of  the  many  mag- 
nificent suits  which  are  known  to  have  existed  at 
this  time.     These,  although  few  of  them  have 

1  Temper  (v.  t.)  :  to  give,  especially  to  a  metal,  a  required  degree 
of  hardness.  Steel,  for  instance,  may  be  rapidly  hardened  by  being 
plunged  into  cold  water  while  hot,  or  softened  by  being  allowed  to  cool 
slowly.  Other  liquids  may  be  substituted  for  water,  and  these  again  modify 
the  condition  of  the  metal. 

[  180] 


Fig.  60.     Wrought  Steel  Buckler,  Italian,  sixteenth  century  :  parcel- 
gilt  and  dotted  with  silver  ;  diameter  22  inches 

(From  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club,  exhibition  of  1900) 


WROUGHT  STEEL 


been  kept  together  and  absolutely  intact  and  com- 
plete, can  be  judged  by  the  separate  pieces  — 
morions,  armets,  shields,  vambraces,  tasslets,  and 
the  like ;  pieces  which  are  among  the  chief 
glories  of  the  Prado  at  Madrid,  the  Musee  d'Ar- 
tillerie  in  the  Invalides  at  Paris,  the  Gewehr- 
Museum  at  Dresden,  the  Tower  Armoury  in 
London,  and  smaller  public  and  private  collec- 
tions. It  is  one  of  the  curious  phenomena  in 
decorative  art  —  this  appearance  of  the  finest 
pieces  of  armor  at  a  time  when  the  general 
abandonment  of  defensive  arms  was  close  at  hand. 
The  splendid  round  buckler  of  Italian  sixteenth- 
century  work,  shown  in  Fig.  60,  has  its  high  relief 
emphasized  by  gold  and  silver  inlay  ;  but  the  em- 
bossed and  delicately  chased  steel  is  the  chief 
thought  of  its  maker. 

These  relief  patterns  were  by  far  the  most 
effective  means  of  decorating  pieces  of  armor ; 
and  the  work  of  the  Roman  Imperial  time  may 
be  compared  for  richness  and  variety  with  that 
of  the  Renaissance ;  though  the  antique  pieces 
which  we  know  are  in  bronze,  and  those  repre- 
sented in  statuary,  as  in  the  statue  of  Augustus 
in  the  Braccio  Nuovo  of  the  Vatican  were  prob- 
ably of  that  metal.  Engraving  with  acid  or  more 
rarely  with  the  tool,  and  parcel-gilding  are,  with 
mere  changes  in  the  general  color  of  larger  sur- 
faces, the  only  other  available  means  of  decorat- 
ing armor.     The   objects   of  armor  which  are 

[  ] 


METAL  WORK 


occasionally  seen  adorned  with  enamels  are,  of 
course,  merely  pieces  of  parade  and  court  display. 
The  suit  called  the  armor  of  Charles  IX,  also  in 
the  Gallery  of  Apollo,  falsely  dated  by  the  ascrip- 
tion to  that  sovereign,  is  one  of  the  few  of  this 
character  existing.  Obviously  no  man  would  wear 
in  war,  or  even  as  if  he  might  be  going  to  war, 
a  suit  which  would  lose  its  adornments  at  the  first 
hostile  blows. 

There  belong  also  to  our  second  category  all 
those  works  in  metal  which  are  wrought  by 
the  hammer  and  file  without  elaborate  embossing. 
The  greater  number  of  these  are  in  iron,  the 
nearly  pure  metal,  as  distinguished  from  cast-iron 
and  steel,  which  are  carbonates  of  iron  :  and  again 
the  greater  number  of  these  pieces  are  made  up 
of  bars  and  rods,  forming  gratings,  railings,  and 
gates,  —  barriers,  fixed  and  movable.  This  is 
blacksmith's  work :  and  blacksmith's  work  has 
in  past  times,  included  other  things  than  what 
we  call  "  grilles,"  nowadays.  The  single  article 
on  wrought  iron  (Serrurerie)  from  Viollet-le 
Due's  Dictionary  will  furnish  examples  enough 
of  mediaeval  locks,  bolts,  and  the  like,  admirably 
wrought  in  the  true  spirit  of  constructional  or 
realistic  design.  Later  in  style  than  those  are  the 
keys  shown  in  Fig.  61,  one  of  which  has  a  cypher 
wrought  in  the  bow.  The  growing  skill  of  the 
locksmith  and  the  increasing  use  of  cast  and  finished 
metal,  has  done  away  with  these  methods  of  work. 

[  i82] 


W It OUGH T  IRON 


The  making  of  "  grilles  "  is  practised  still  in  the 
old  way  ;  a  revival  of  wrought-iron  work  having 
been  brought  about  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  after  a  hundred  years  of  decline  and  in- 
difference.    The  essential  character  of  desien  in 


Fig.  6i.     Steel  keys,  French,  seventeenth  century 

these  combinations  of  bars  and  strips  is  almost 
unique  in  art  as  being  linear  —  a  matter  of  thin 
strips  of  shade  or  of  light  (as  the  grille  is  seen 
against  a  lighter  or  darker  ground)  contrasting 
with  somewhat  larger  surfaces  interposed  between 
them.  Fig.  62  shows  a  design  in  which  parallel 
lines  prevail;  Fig.  63  shows  one  in  which  the 
lines  constantly  meet  and  separate  again.  In  this 
latter  example,  to  contradict  the  excess  of  thin 
bars  in  the  chief  pattern,  the  cresting  is  made 

[  183  ] 


METAL  WORK 


of  sheet  iron  cut  into  leaf-forms,  and  afterwards 
rolled  and  bent :  but  it  is  not  such  sheet  iron  as 


Fig.  62.     Grille,  eighteenth  century.     Bourges,  France 


we  have  in  the  twentieth  century,  but  hammered- 
out,  hand-wrought  material  of  varying  thickness 

[  184] 


WROUGHT  IKON 


and  therefore  of  uneven  surface  —  an  essential 
peculiarity. 

The  use  of  the  more  precious  metals  in  jeweller's 
work  is  almost  infinitely  varied,  and  consists  very 


Fig.  63.     Grille,  fourteenth  century.  Verona 


largely  in  a  combination  of  the  processes  already 
alluded  to  with  other  processes,  such  as  soldering, 
piercing  with  the  saw,  and  chasing.  The  setting 
of  precious  stones  may  be  disregarded,  as  it  involves 
nothing  more  than  the  wise  choice  of  the  place 

[  185  ] 


METAL  WORK 


and  surroundings  of  the  stone,  while  the  securing 
of  it  to  its  mount  is  delicate  mechanism  and  nothing 
else.  When  small  plaques  of 
painted  enamel  have  to  be  in- 
serted, the  choice  becomes  more 
delicate  and  the  manner  of  set- 
ting more  open  to  question.  It 
is  still  not  the  manual  art  that 
is  concerned,  so  much  as  the 
decision  of  the  superintendent. 
Enamelling  applied  directly  to 
the  piece  is  of  a  different  and 
more  refined  character  as  deco- 
rative art ;  and  so  is  the  setting 
of  many  stones  or  the  stringing 
of  many  small  pearls,  in  which 
cases  much  decorative  effect  can 
be  made  or  marred  by  the  hand- 
work itself.  Fig.  54  (Chapter 
IX)  shows  the  reverse  side  of  an 
Indian  bracelet  of  five  separate 
strands.  Fig.  64  in  the  present 
chapter  shows  the  much  less 
elaborate  face  which  was  yet  in- 
tended as  the  "  show  "  side,  — 
one  hundred  and  five  small  tur- 
quoises set  each  in  its  own 
chaton.1     The  determining  the 


Fig.  64.    Indian  brace- 
let, turquoise  side 


1  Chaton  :  in  French,  primarily  the  pre- 
cious stone  with  its  mount ;  later,  the  head  or 

[  186] 


P  E  It  S  O  N  A  L   J  E  W  E  L  It  Y 


size  of  the  stones  and  the  shape  and  character  of 
the  chatons,  although  everything  may  be  thought 
to  turn  upon  the  original  choice  of  the  designer 
in  these  regards,  is  yet  to  be  distinguished  from 
the  delicate   manual  work  itself.     There  is,  of 


Fig.  65.    Russian  enamelled  chain 

course,  immeasurably  greater  interest  to  the  stu- 
dent in  the  rough  Russian  chain,  Fig.  65.  In 
this  the  metal  is  of  no  great  value,  apparently  an 
alloy  ;  and  the  decoration,  apart  from  the  simple 
device  of  two  small  links  between  each  pair  of 

central  feature  of  a  finger-ring,  whether  including  the  stone  with  its 
mount  or  applied  to  the  metal  frame  alone.  In  the  absence  of  a  familiar 
term  for  the  metal  mount  or  holder,  the  old  usage  may  be  retained  as 
in  the  text. 


[  187  ] 


METAL  WORK 


plaques,  consists  entirely  in  the  application  of  un- 
polished, unground  enamel  in  white,  green,  and 
black,  with  many  letters  and  minute  characters  of 
gold.  Four  small  rough  pearls  are  set  between 
the  arms  of  the  cross. 


Fig.  66.     Silver  watch,  French  eighteenth  century.  The 
case  set  with  carbuncles  and  a  tortoise-shell  medallion 

So  far  as  jewelry  has  much  interest  for  the  art 
student,  it  is  mainly  in  the  way  of  metal  work. 
The  sparkle  of  a  diamond  or  the  glow  of  a  ruby, 
as  well  as  the  delicate  color  and  lustre  of  the 
less  costly  stones  —  the  beautiful  veined  agates  and 
jaspers  —  all  these  concern  the  artist  only  so  far 
as  they  afford  natural  means  of  lighting  up  his 
design  ;  very  much  as  a  landscape  painter  illu- 
minates his  composition  of  grays  and  greens  by  a 
touch  or  two  of  red  in  the  foreground.  But  the 
actual  modelling  and  carving  of  gold  or  of  less 
expensive  metals  gives  the  artist  the  best  chance 

[  188  ] 


GOLD   AND   SILVER  WORK 


possible  in  these  smaller  pieces  ot  work  to  show 
his  hand.  Fig.  66  gives  two  watch-cases ;  the 
one  on  the  left,  a  silver  box  of  sixteen  sides,  the 
making  of  which,  with  perfect  fitting  of  all 
the  sides  and  angles,  and  the  true  adjustment  of 
hinge  and  clasp,  is 
admitted  to  be  a  test 
piece  of  work.  The 
making  of  a  box  of 
this  elaborate  charac- 
ter is  a  rare  achieve- 
ment. The  other 
watch-case  is  of  gold 
and  simply  round,  and 
therefore  an  easy  piece 
of  work  to  do,  so  far 
as  the  fitting  of  the 
parts  to  one  another 
is  concerned  :  but  the  Fig.  66  bis.  Gold  outer  case  of  watch, 
pierced   Ornament,    all  French  eighteenth  century 

sawed  through  and  then  wrought  into  shape  with 
the  chasing  tool  and  burnisher,  and  the  relief  or- 
nament on  solid  ground  worked  by  the  repousse 
process  and  then  chased,  are  of  the  delicate  work 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  In  our  own  time  the 
watch  has  ceased  to  be  a  decorative  object  —  we 
cannot  have  our  watch-case  too  plain  and  smooth  ; 
but  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  gentlemen  and 
ladies  of  the  time  were  not  minded  to  lose  so 
good  an  opportunity  to  carry  a  delicate  bijou  about 

[  189  ] 


METAL  WORK 


Fig.  67.     Pewter  Vase 

tive  metal  work. 


with  them,  and  the  gold  case  of 
the  time  may  be  compared  with 
the  etui  and  the  patch-box  shown 
in  Figs.  23  and  24. 

The  easy  meth- 
ods of  chang- 
ing the  surface 
color  of  metals 
and  the  further 
facility  with 
which  one  met- 
al may  be  en- 
crusted into  an- 
other (see  Chap- 
ter XVII)  opens 
to  the  student 
another  great 
field  in  decora- 
The  almost  infinite 
variety  of  such  decoration  forbids  more 
than  a  mention  of  it  here  ;  but  Fig.  67 
shows  how  in  not  very  costly  work  a 
pattern  in  pale  gold  can  be  inlaid  in 
the  sides  of  a  piece  of  dull  silver  — 
those  words  "  gold  "  and  "  silver  "  be- 
ing applied  to  the  color  or  hue  only 
of  the  surfaces.  In  fact,  the  vase  is 
pewter,  Chinese  work  of  the  eighteenth 
century  a.  d.,  and  the  inlay  is  of  such 
yellow  metal  as  the  Chinese  use  where   edged  Sword 

[  1 9°  ] 


Fig.  68. 
Persian  two- 


COLORING   OF  METALS 


an  European  would  use  latten.  In  like  manner, 
the  Persian  two-edged  sword,  Fig.  68,  a  very  rough 
and  careless  piece,  is  adorned,  not  by  damascening 
(tor  which  see  Chapter  XVII),  but  by  a  relief  pat- 
tern slightly  raised  above  the  background,  which 
has  been  lowered  by  acid  ;  the  pattern  being  then 
gilded  with  a  slight  and  now  disappearing  film 
of  gold  leaf.  There  is,  of  course,  no  end  to  the 
decorative  effects  which  may  be  produced  when 
the  different  changing  and  beautifully  graded  hues 
of  the  many  metals  are  skilfully  handled  in  com- 
bination. The  beautiful  work  of  the  Japanese  in 
the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  of  our  era 
combines  higher  and  more  varied  relief  with  the 
contrast  of  color ;  as  where  dark  gray  bronze, 
silvery  gray  shibuichi,  dull  red  copper,  bluish-black 
shakudo,  silver  and  gold  are  wrought  with  delicate 
sculpture  into  one  composition. 


[  l9l  ] 


Chapter  Eleven 


LEATHER  WORK 

THE  decorative  arts  which  depend  upon 
the  employment  of  leather  are  few 
and  of  small  comparative  importance. 
The  fact  that  one  form  of  these  arts, 
modern  book-binding,  is  associated  in  the  mind 
with  the  enormously  important  subject  of  fine 
books,  old  and  new,  gives  it  extrinsic  value  ;  but 
it  is  not  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  the  decora- 
tive arts  in  its  possibilities  when  considered  by 
itself.  Here,  as  in  some  other  industrial  arts,  the 
material  has  in  itself  a  great  part  of  the  charm. 
The  even  surface  of  fine  leather  such  as  the  old 
binders  could  obtain,  though  it  is  unknown  now- 
adays, —  and  even  the  surface  of  leather  still 
obtainable,  such  as  vellum  and  the  morocco 
which  on  rare  occasions  are  seen  in  late  nineteenth- 
century  work,  counts  for  much  in  the  general 
charm  of  a  piece  of  book-binding.  He  is  a  wise 
designer  who  knows  how  to  utilize  this  charm 
of  the  material  to  the  utmost.  In  this  way,  the 
morocco  bindings  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in 
which  the  armorial  bearings  of  the  owner  form 

[  192] 


BEAUTY   OF   THE  MATERIAL 


the  only  deliberately  added  ornament,  (see  Fig. 
69)  these  being  stamped  in  gold  upon  the  broad 
cover,  are  found  by  many  students  as  beautiful  as 


Fig.  69.     Binding,  dark  blue  Morocco,  with  the  armorial 
bearings  and  orders  of  The  Great  Dauphin, 
Son  of  Louis  XIV,  died  1  7  1 1 

(Collection  of  E.  F.  Bonaventure) 

the  far  more  elaborate  pieces  of  work  which  we 
know  by  the  names,  sometimes  of  the  binders 
who  are  thought  to  have  introduced  the  pattern 
in  question,  sometimes  of  the  wealthy  owners 
of  books  for  whom  such  bindings  were  made. 
The  Grolier  bindings,  named  from  the  treasurer 

VOL.  I  —  13  [    193  ] 


LEATHER  WORK 


of  Francis  I,  and  the  Maioli  bindings  named  in 
like  manner  from  an  Italian  bibliophile  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  are  characterized  by  an  elabo- 
rate interwoven  pattern,  a  strap  ornament  carried 
in  interlaced  and  involved  curves  all  over  the 
surface,  the  width  of  the  band  being  inlaid  or 
painted  of  a  different  color  from  the  surround- 
ing leather,  and  the  boundaries  outlined  with 
gold ;  see  what  is  said  in  Chapter  XVII  of 
leather  as  an  inlay.  Other  rich  binding  of  the 
same  period  is  less  well  known.  Fig.  70  is  a 
book  which  belonged  to  Catherine  de  Medicis, 
queen  of  Henri  II  of  France.  Everything  is  in 
it  that  leather  work  allows  except  relief  which  is 
rarely  used  :  and  the  notable  thing  is  that  inlaid 
patterns  and  gold  scroll-work,  however  effective, 
would  be  much  more  valuable  as  design  if  in 
another  material.  Scrolls  and  anthemions1  may 
be  equally  beautiful  and  far  more  varied  in  wood- 
work, for  instance  (see  Chapter  XVII],  while  the 
beauty  of  the  leather  is  partly  lost. 

This  matter  of  abstract  patterns  is  so  singularly 
important  that  it  is  impossible  to  consider  it  too 
often  in  connection  with  the  different  arts  in 
which  it  plays  an  important  part.  In  Chapters 
XII  and  XIII  the  effect  of  lace  lying  upon  the 

1  Anthemion  :  A  pattern  or  unit  of  design,  consisting  of  several  radi- 
ating leaves,  flower-stems,  or  the  like.  Persian  and  East  Indian  art 
combines  flowers  and  leaves  in  a  kind  of  bouquet,  often  rising  from  a 
vase.  Greek  carved  ornament  includes  the  so-called  honeysuckle. 
These  are  the  extremes  of  rich  and  simple  anthemions. 

[  *94  ] 


Fig.  70.     Cover  of  book  printed  in  1596  :  trom  the  library  of 
Catherine  de  Medicis 

(Histoire  de  la  Bibliophilie) 


DECORATION    13  V   FLAT  PATTERNS 


material  of  a  garment  is  compared  with  the 
effect  of  different  kinds  of  inlay  ;  mosaic  (Chapter 
XVIII),  caligraphy  (Chapter  XXII),  mural  paint- 
ing in  flat  work  (Chapter  XX),  wall  papers,  tapa 
and  the  like  (Chapter  XXIII),  and  the  primitive 
arts  described  in  Chapter  II,  are  all  concerned 
with  this  matter  of  pattern.  And  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  the  great  figure  painters  of  the  past 
times  —  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  — - 
in  the  North  and  in  the  South  alike,  all  cared  so 
much  for  the  fiat  pattern  that  it  is  to  this  day 
a  wonder  to  all  who  study  Frans  Hals  or  Paul 
Veronese  that  so  much  time  could  be  spent 
upon  pattern  drawing  in  connection  with  cos- 
tume. Therefore  it  is  that  while  we  are  enjoy- 
ing the  beauty,  the  pleasant  feel,  the  attractive 
aspect  of  a  beautiful  book-cover,  it  is  well  to 
remember  how  superior  may  be,  in  other  depart- 
ments, the  production  of  fine  and  elaborate  de- 
sign. The  charm  of  book-binding  must  always 
be  largely  in  an  appropriate  simplicity  and  in  the 
judicious  putting  in  of  a  few  well-chosen  orna- 
ments. The  reader  is  reminded  of  what  is  said 
above  of  the  use  of  heraldic  bearings  in  this  way, 
and  may  note  that  heraldry,  which  is  considered 
in  Chapter  XX  as  a  decorative  art  of  small  com- 
pass and  slight  value,  has  its  best  use  in  such 
simple  ornamentation  as  book-covers  may  receive. 

A  very  different  style  is  that  often  associated 
with  the  name  of  Clovis  Eve,  work  which  is  dis- 

[  i95] 


LEATHE  R    W  0  11  K 


tinctive  of  the  seventeenth  century,  where  the 
decoration  on  the  morocco  surface  is  confined  to 
the  combining  of  indefinite  numbers  of  small 
gold  spots  producing  scroll  patterns.  As  a  gen- 
eral thing  it  may  be  noted  that  the  smaller  the 
tool  by  which  the  impressed  pattern  in  blind 
tooling1  or  in  gold  is  made,  the  more  effective 
the  design :  and  yet  the  tooling  with  minute 
points  associated  with  the  name  of  Le  Gascon, 
another  seventeenth-century  artist,  is  not  in  itself 
capable  of  as  much  as  is  the  bolder  work  of  the 
Eves.  Either  system  allows  the  leather  to  show 
to  its  fall  value  :  and  we  are  not  to  forget  that  gold 
is  the  best  of  all  harmonizers ;  the  greatest  help 
possible  to  the  subdued  glow  of  the  main  surface. 

The  student  of  book-binding  should  beware  of 
tooling  where  it  is  evident  that  a  flower  or  a 
sprig  of  two  or  three  leaves  is  put  on  by  a  single 
impression  of  a  larger  tool.  The  reason  of  this 
is  not  far  to  seek ;  not  only  is  the  design  sure 
to  be  more  fluent,  more  at  the  command  of  the 
workman  in  the  case  of  the  small  tool,  which 
must  be  applied  very  often  to  the  surface  to  pro- 
duce a  pattern,  and  the  resulting  effect  far  less 
rigid,  but  there  is  also  the  greatest  danger  that 
the  finisher  will  fail  to  understand  his  large  tool 
perfectly,  and  will  set  his  sprigs  at  awkward  angles 
to  the  main  stem  or  in  some  similar  way  misuse 

1  Blind  I'oo/ing :  Decoration  by  means  of  impressions  made  by 
heated  tools  without  gilding,  and  usually  without  added  color. 

[  196'] 


SMALL   AND  LARGE  TOOLS 


them.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  term  aux 
petits  fers  (with  small  tools)  is  considered  as  ex- 
pressive of  elaborate  and  usually  interesting  gold 


Fig.  71.     Binding  of  a  manuscript  Diploma  of 
Bologna  University  dated  1650 

ornamentation.  Fig.  71  is  a  very  rough  and 
carelessly  wrought  piece  of  work,  the  binding  of 
a  manuscript  diploma  (see  Fig.  176)  but  it  is 
attractive  because  of  its  very  simplicity,  the  un- 
consciously swift  and  off-hand  work  of  the  skilled 

[  197  ] 


LEATHER  WORK 


workman.  The  ruddy  brown  of  the  leather  forms 
the  background  except  in  the  triangles  between 


Fig.  72.     Binding  in  red  morocco,  "  Office  de  la  Semaine 
Sainte,"  Paris,  1691.     The  Fleurs-de-lis  and  the  crowned 
LL.  mark  it  as  belonging  to  one  of  the  royal  chateaux 

the  points  of  the  star,  and  the  broad  band  of  the 
border  :  those  are  painted  black.  Fig.  72  is  the 
binding  of  a  book  of  devotion,  of  the  time  of 
Louis  XIV,  with  the  crowned  L  of  the  king's 

[  198  ] 


TOOLING   AND  GILDING 


own  library  arranged  in  a  semee  to  adorn  the 
red  morocco  cover. 

The  lining  of  the  covers  of  books  is  interesting. 
For  this  the  French  term  doublure  is  largely  used. 
It  is  very  common  to  use  a  leather  for  the  lining 
quite  different  in  color  from  that  on  the  outside, 
and  to  carry  out  the  contrast  by  making  the  gold 
ornamentation  very  different. 

The  application  of  these  gold  lines  is  very 
simple  ;  pure  gold  leaf  is  used,  gilders'  leaf  of  the 
finest  quality,  and  this  adheres  to  the  surface  of 
the  leather  in  the  most  permanent  way  after  it 
has  been  once  set  firmly  into  its  place  by  heat 
and  by  pressure.  The  pressure  required  is  not 
greater  than  that  which  the  workman  applies 
with  ease,  and  the  heat  not  greater  than  that 
which  is  held  by  the  brass  or  steel  tool.  When 
tooling  is  done  without  gold  it  is  usually  called 
blind  tooling,  but  this  is  hardly  to  be  extended  to 
the  making  of  elaborate  patterns  in  bas-relief  and 
in  intaglio,  as  on  the  pigskin  bindings  of  the 
sixteenth-century  volumes.  Those  stamped  bind- 
ings are  the  less  important  to  our  present  subject 
that  nearly  all  the  art  shown  in  them  consists 
in  the  engraving  in  relief  of  the  large  stamps ; 
(see  also  Chapters  XIX  and  XXI). 

Leather  work  can  be  used  for  the  adornment 
of  boxes,  etuis1  of  different  sorts  and  other  use- 

1  Etui :  A  small  case,  the  French  term  being  used  for  any  box  of 
a  somewhat  finished  character  and  intended  as  a  permanent  receptacle 

[  199  ] 


LEATHER  WORK 


ful  objects.  The  ornamentation  may  be  of  the 
same  character  as  that  in  book-binding,  with  gold 
points  or  gold  lines  or  bands  worked  by  the 
roulette.1 

Outside  of  the  more  delicate  appliances  used  by 
the  bookbinder,  and  by  the  older  workmen  in 
boxes  and  sheaths,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  leather 
work  whose  ornamentation  is  not  very  aggressive, 
as  it  is  obtained  by  simple  depressions,  and  there- 
fore low  reliefs  used  in  connection  with  the  de- 
pressions, all  made  in  the  leather  by  boiling  it 
first  and  impressing  it  while  it  is  soft.  This 
work  known  as  cuir  boui/li,  or  "  boiled  leather," 
or  in  old  English  books  as  curbully  and  the  like, 
was  used  as  early  as  the  later  armor-wearing 
days,  the  ceremonious  epoch  of  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries,  when  display  at  tilt  and  tour- 
ney was  as  important  at  least  as  the  use  of  the 
war-armor  in  the  stricken  held.  The  crests 
with  which  the  helmets  of  tilting  knights  were 
adorned,  sometimes  fifteen  or  twenty  inches  high 
and  modelled  into  shapes  of  strange  animals  and 
even  of  humanity,  were  made  of  cuir  bouilli  as 

for  a  delicate  object,  as  opera-glasses  or  the  like,  or  for  many  small 
objects.  Thus,  the  housewife  cases  of  the  eighteenth  century  with  silver- 
mounted  scissors,  needle-boxes  and  the  like,  are  often  made  of  thin, 
metal  work,  gold  or  silver  ornamented  with  repousse  designs,  and  chased, 
engraved,  or  enamelled,  or  of  fine  leather  work  ;  and  these  are  known 
in  collectors'  parlance  as  etuis,  in  almost  all  cases. 

1  Roulette:  A  little  wheel,  especially  the  tool  used  to  mark  or  cut 
by  means  of  a  revolving  wheel.  That  in  use  for  book-bindings  works 
exactly  as  the  wheel  sometimes  used  to  decorate  a  pie-crust. 

[  200  ] 


WORK   IN  BOILED 


LE AT HER 


an  alternative  to  light  and  thin  repousse  work  in 
copper,  the  object  being  to  get  great  durability 
with  all  possible  lightness.  Few  of  these  have 
been  preserved.  They  are  known  to  us  chiefly 
by  the  miniatures  in  the  later  manuscripts  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  museums  of  Europe  contain 
some  such  pieces,  however,  as  well  as  some 
leather-covered  bucklers  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
trunk  mails  and  valises  for  travelling,  and  even 
pieces  of  saddlery  and  of  personal  wear,  such  as 
jackboots ;  in  all  of  which  the  system  of  orna- 
ment is  nearly  the  same,  that  is  to  say,  bas-reliefs 
on  a  sunken  ground  such  as  could  be  produced 
by  putting  strong  and  continued  pressure  on 
softened  leather  (see  Fig.  73).  The  white,  or 
rather  yellowish  gray,  pigskin  covers  of  the  large 
folio  volumes  of  the  time  when  printing  was 
young,  contained  very  elaborate  patterns  which, 
however,  from  their  very  slight  relief  and  their 
uniformity  of  color,  are  not  very  showy  :  they 
have  been  mentioned  above. 

Painting  upon  leather  must  be  mentioned  here, 
although  it  belongs  to  the  subject  treated  in 
Chapters  XX  and  XXV.  The  combination  of 
mere  painting  with  tooling,  such  as  can  only  be 
done  in  leather,  and  the  peculiar  gloss  resulting 
from  flat  painting  on  vellum,  parchment,  or  calf, 
make  of  this  kind  of  work  a  somewhat  specialized 
art.  Fig.  74  is  the  back  and  upper  cover  of  a 
German  service  book  printed  at  Liibeck  in  1  7 9  1 . 

[  201  ] 


LEATHER   W  0  R  K 


The  flowers  are  outlined  in  gold  and  filled  in 
with  flat  painting  of  green  and  red ;  the  scroll 
patterns  of  the  borders  and  the  kneeling  figures 


Fig.  73.     Leather  Bottle  arranged  to  be  hung  to 
a  strap  over  the  shoulder 

("  La  Collection  Spitzer  ") 

are  entirely  in  gold  and  generally  on  a  red 
painted  ground  :  the  edges  of  the  book  are  elab- 
orately stamped  with  rude  scrolls  and  with  the 
adjuration,  Lobe  den  Herrn,  "  Praise  the  Lord," 
framed  by  some  more  trivial  scroll-work. 

[  202  ] 


PAINTING    UPON  LEATHER 


Painting  upon  leather  is  carried  much  farther 
in  connection  with  stamping  and  gilding,  in  the 
preparation  of  the  remarkable  wall-hangings  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  reproduced,  or  restudied, 


Fig.  74.     Binding,  vellum,  painted  in  vivid  colors  and  with 
gilding  applied  on  the  smooth  surface,  without  impression 

in  the  nineteenth,  and  still  (1904)  in  process  of 
improvement  at  the  hands  or  a  very  few  skilled 
workmen.  The  Japanese  have  used  the  same 
process,  and  again  have  imitated  in  tough  paper 
their  own  leather-work  :  but  the  few  very  tine 
screens  of  Japan  colored  and  lacquered  leather 
that  have  been   shown  the   Western   world  are 

[  ±03  ] 


LEATHER  WORK 


worthy  of  much  study.  Another  decorative 
leather  comes  from  the  far  East  :  it  is  soft  and 
not  lustrous  in  surface,  delicately  colored  in  sim- 
pie  patterns  of  brown  and  gray  and  dull  red,  unlike 
anything  known  to  the  arts  of  Europe. 

Modern  industry  directed  toward  the  produc- 
tion of  decorative  pieces  made  at  high  cost  has 
resulted  in  leather  work  of  an  extraordinary  re- 
finement produced  by  the  use  of  skins  of  animals 
never  used  by  and  hardly  known  to  the  sixteenth- 
century  artists.  The  skins  of  goats,  of  different 
species  of  alligators,  lizards,  serpents,  and  the  like, 
are  used  with  their  natural  veining  and  inequal- 
ities of  surface,  and  the  old  device  of  producing 
an  artificial  grain  by  sinking  into  the  skin,  tempo- 
rarily, little  pellets  or  grains  such  as  the  hard 
seeds  of  certain  plants,  has  given  to  the  modern 
leather  worker  an  indefinite  number  of  surfaces 
having  a  singular  variety  of  texture  and  of  deli- 
cate tinting.  Such  leather  work  depends  for  its 
charm  usually  upon  the  skin  itself  and  the  high 
polish  given  to  it,  rarely  upon  the  applied  orna- 
mentation or  the  beauty  of  form.  In  this  as  in 
other  things  the  modern  European  designer  knows 
his  own  inability  to  produce  patterns.  He  limits 
himself  to  developing  the  cloudings  and  streak- 
ings  and  veinings  in  the  glossy  surface  of  leather, 
as  to  the  production  of  them  in  the  textile  fabric, 
or  on  the  stuccoed  wall  of  an  apartment. 


[  *°4  ] 


Chapter  Twelve 


TEXTILE  ART1 

THE  simplest  textiles  are  often  those 
which  show  the  most  markedly  their 
characteristic  design.  A  piece  of 
straight-forward  weaving  with  thread 
of  different  colors  lying  in  two  directions,  as  in 
coarse  cotton  cloth  of  simple  designs  in  plaids, 
such  as  are  hand-woven  in  Greece  and  in  the  Mo- 
hammedan East,  and  in  such  inexpensive  stuffs  as 
gingham,  together  with  those  soft  fabrics  woven 
of  little  bundles  of  fine  threads,  such  as  are  called 
"basket  weaves,"  gives  the  best  instances  of  pure 
textile  design.  The  resulting  patterns  are  gener- 
ally admired  and  enjoyed.  They  have  always 
been  imitated  on  painted  and  printed  surfaces  and 
by  means  of  inlay ;  even  carving  in  low  relief 
takes  the  woven  texture  for  its  subject :  every  one 
loves  the  effect  of  in  and  out,  first  over  and  then 
underneath.      Weaves   as  simple   as    these  have 

1  Textile  Art :  That  which  has  to  do  with  weaving,  plaiting,  or 
otherwise  combining  threads,  fibres,  cords,  and  the  like,  so  as  to  produce 
a  fabric,  usually  flexible,  and  verv  thin  in  comparison  with  its  length  and 
breadth.  The  number  of  different  processes  is  very  great  and  their  dis- 
tinctive peculiarities  marked. 

[  2°5  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


come  down  to  us  from  remote  antiquity  with 
other  artistic  work  of  Egypt,  and  again  they 
come  from  mountain  valleys  and  tropical  islands ; 
hut  with  them  come  the  more  elaborate  patterns, 
tor  it  seems  that  the  loom  invites  human  ingenu- 
ity and  rewards  it.  Block-patterns,  checquers,  and 
plaids  ;  zigzags  and  broken  triangles  ;  stripes  with 
stripes  across  them  or  zigzags  within  them  — 
these  are  sometimes  of  the  Nile  country  itself,  or, 
as  often,  of  Syrian  origin.  Others  have  been 
found  in  tombs  of  remote  South  America  ;  and, 
again,  admirable  specimens  are  obtained  from  the 
islands  of  the  Pacific  (see  Fig.  5).  With  the 
slight  change  involved  in  twilled  weaving,  where 
each  thread  of  the  weft 1  goes  over  and  then  under 
two  or  three  or  more  warp  2  threads,  a  more  spir- 
ited effect  is  produced  ;  it  is  in  this  way  that  are 
woven  striped  and  plaided  linen  cloths,  and,  also, 
Scottish  tartans  with  simple  blocks  of  pure  color 
alternating  with  patches  of  mingled  hue.  Weav- 
ing with  specially  twisted  threads  gives  us  crape, 
than  which  no  textile  is  more  interesting.  Fine 
string- work,  "  macrame  "  and  other,  may  be  con- 

1  Weft :  In  weaving,  the  threads  which  cross  the  web,  from  selvage 
to  selvage  ;  called  also  the  woof. 

2  Warp  :  In  weaving,  the  threads  or  cords  that  run  in  the  direction 
of  the  length  of  the  fabric  and  form  its  principal  foundation.  In  some 
weaves  these  are  of  the  same  material  as  the  woof  or  cross-threads,  as 
when  a  piece  of  cotton  cloth  is  entirely  of  the  same  material  lengthwise 
and  crosswise.  In  other  cases,  the  warp  is  composed  of  strong  cords, 
upon  which  the  threads  which  form  the  surfaces  of  the  stuff  are  sup- 
ported and  by  which  they  are  concealed. 

[  206  ] 


THE   NATURE   OF   A   WOVEN  FABRIC 


sidered  as  a  textile  ;  and  we  cannot  deny  the  same 
place  in  our  classification  to  plaiting,  like  that  in 
colored  rihbons,  which  is  recorded  as  the  crown- 
ing achievement  of  the  favorites  of  Henri  II  ;  and 
if  this  is  to  be  accepted,  then  knotting  and  the 
making  of  complicated  fringes  come  also  within 
the  limits  of  our  subject,  and  knitting  and  netting 
and  tatting  and  crochet-work  as  well.  The  dis- 
tinction seems  to  be  here  —  that  where  the  threads 
are  strongly  tied  at  their  intersections  the  work 
is  not  weaving,  but  netting.  The  woven  fabric 
gives  us  generally  a  solid  surface  —  a  fabric 
through  which  light  will  not  pass.  Some  of 
these  seemingly  trivial  occupations  may  result  in 
very  artistic  combinations  indeed,  as  may  be  seen 
when  an  ingenious  sailor-man  turns  his  thoughts 
to  learning  all  the  plaits  and  all  the  knots  his 
messmates  know,  and  adding  more  of  his  own  de- 
vising. Elaborations  of  this  sort  must  have  been 
common  in  the  far  North  of  Europe,  before  the 
carved  straps  and  knots  and  interlacings  in  relief 
were  carved  upon  the  Norwegian  door-posts.  As 
for  the  far-carried  weaves  imitated  in  painted  tiles 
and  in  stamped  plaster,  in  Cairo  and  Damascus, 
Cordova  and  Granada,  one  fancies  that  they  were 
devised  for  the  very  purpose  of  wall-decoration, 
put  together  especially  to  serve  as  "  working 
models." 

With  these  simpler  weaves  and  plaits  are  to  be 
named  bobbin  lace,  that  in  which  the  threads  are 

[  207  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


twisted  and  woven,  plaited  and  tied  together,  so  as 
to  make  patterns  of  rather  solid  surface  alternat- 
ing with  open  spaces  ;  and  even  so  much  of  needle- 
point lace  as  can  be  separated  from  embroidery, 
the  needle  being  used  merely  to  lead  the  threads 
which  go  to  make  .up  a  woven  ground,  whether 
that  of  the  general  surface  of  the  piece  (the  fond 
or  champ)  or  that  of  a  leaf  or  scroll  (the  toile). 
In  fact,  no  combination  of  threads  or  strings  to 
make  a  fabric  is  so  simple  that  it  is  not  suscepti- 
ble of  artistic  treatment ;  and,  as  stated  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  chapter,  these  more  obvious  ways 
of  work  lead  more  often  to  spontaneous  design, 
the  true  thought  of  the  workman,  than  do  the 
splendid  fabrics ;  for  those  require  fully  worked- 
out  drawings  made  long  beforehand.  The  hand 
and  the  eye  of  the  operative  may  be  as  originally 
artistic,  as  unswayed  by  outside  influences,  as  that 
of  the  carver  or  painter  may  be  ;  while  yet  the 
process  of  such  weaving  is  not  strictly  an  artistic 
process,  like  those  named  in  Part  I  of  this  work, 
because  the  driving  of  the  woof  through  the 
threads  of  the  warp  is  mechanical,  and  the  art- 
inspiration  works  outside  of  and  apart  from  the 
mechanical  act,  deciding  beforehand  how  many 
threads  shall  be  of  this  color  and  of  that.  The 
artistic  thought  in  weaving  is  not  expressed  imme- 
diately (with  no  "mediation"),  as  it  is  in  model- 
ling and  carving,  —  it  is  too  deliberate  for  that ;  the 
weaver  is  told  or  has  told  himself  just  what  he  has 

[  '2o8  ] 


DESIGN   IN  LACE 


to  do.  The  distinction  is  rather  too  subtle  to  be 
maintained  in  all  cases,  but  it  may  be  noted  that 
the  maker  of  bobbin  lace,  even  of  an  elaborate 
pattern,  makes  it  rather  in  the  way  of  pursuing  a 
long-studied  and  well-learned  industry,  repeating 
one  of  several  patterns  already  familiar,  because  it 
is  so  that  the  educated  fingers  have  learned  to 
move.  These  arts  of  the  skilled  operative  are 
often  baffling  to  the  inquirer  ;  and  yet  the  inquiry 
is  self-rewarding.  We  need  to  know  when  the 
workman  is  also  the  artist  :  the  Venetian  girl  sit- 
ting out  of  doors  in  the  little  campo  twirling  her 
bobbins,  or  the  great  Robusti  overhead  in  his 
workroom,  plying  the  readv,  the  practised,  the 
infallible  brush.  And  therefore  it  must  always  be 
noted,  whenever  there  has  been  used  a  fully  drawn- 
out  design  and  its  directions  minutely  followed  ; 
because  here  there  comes  in  that  interference 
of  another  mind  which  indeed  does  not  prevent 
artistic  work  by  the  subordinate  —  which  may 
even  advance  and  improve  such  work  —  and  yet 
changes  it  greatly  as  to  all  its  conditions. 

It  is  in  this  last-named  way  that  the  more  pre- 
tentious work  of  the  textile  industry  is  always  done. 
It  has  to  be  drawn  out  beforehand.  Even  the 
Indian  weaver  of  rugs  with  his  simple  loom  set  up 
under  a  tree,  and  his  legs  in  a  little  pit  dug  for 
the  purpose,  while  he  sits  upon  a  thin  cushion  laid 
upon  the  ground,  —  even  he  is  using  for  his  con- 
stant guidance  colored  drawings  that  have  come  to 

vol.  i  —  i+  r  20Q  1 


TEXTILE    A  R  T 


him,  perhaps,  from  his  fathers.  He  may  change 
the  patterns  a  little,  but  he  follows  them  in  the 
main.  It  will  be  seen,  then,  how  closely  this  art 
resembles  those  arts  of  general  decoration  dealt 
with  in  Part  III  of  this  work.  Given  the  design 
made  apart  and  in  advance,  and  the  work  of  the 
weaver  of  brocades,  velvets,  cloths  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver, and  the  simply  patterned  silks,  and  furniture- 
worsteds  of  the  nineteenth  century  is,  all  of  it, 
the  result  of  highly  skilled  mechanical  work  di- 
rected by  the  previously  ordered  thought  of  one 
not  necessarily  engaged  in  the  labor.  The  mag- 
nificent tapestries  of  past  and  present  epochs  are 
most  faithfully  copied  from  cartoons ;  and  the 
making  of  those  cartoons  is  always  the  work  of  a 
very  highly  trained  artist,  a  painter,  who  mav  not 
understand  enough  of  the  process  of  making  the 
tapestry  to  produce  an  inch  of  it  himself.  There- 
fore, while  we  continue  to  class  weaving  as  a  man- 
ual art,  it  is,  when  looked  at  from  the  decorative 
side,  less  natural  and  simple  than  some  others. 

That  merely  mechanical  work  is,  however,  of 
the  very  highest  and  most  admirable  sort.  The 
men  who  do  fine  work  at  the  Gobelins,  in  Paris, 
are  commonly  said  to  need  fifteen  years'  training 
before  they  undertake  an  elaborate  composition; 
and  although  much  of  the  minute  care  used  for 
tapestry  weaving  has  to  do  with  the  wholly  unfit 
and  undesirable  copying  of  paintings  never  intended 
for  tapestry  designs,  this  is  an  avoidable  abuse; 

[  210] 


THE   MAKING   OF  VELVET 


and  skill  and  care  of  an  equal  though  different 
quality  are  needed  for  pieces  of  purely  textile  make. 
The  preparation  of  a  noble  design  in  cut  velvet, 
the  making  of  the  loops,  the  cutting  of  the  loops, 
the  shaving  and  singeing  of  the  pile,  are  all 
mechanical  processes,  such  as  are  carried  on  under 
the  direction  of  a  general  master  of  the  works,  — 
no  one  of  them,  nor  all  of  them  together  is  work 
done  as  artist's  work, —  but  the  result  is  so  splendid, 
and  the  mechanism,  human  and  of  the  machine, 
is  so  refined,  that  a  fine-art  process  of  a  special 
kind  seems  to  exist  here  and  to  need  qualification 
(see  Chapter  XXVII).  It  may  be  noted,  however, 
that  some  engraving  is  very  similar  in  its  aims  to 
the  more  elaborate  kinds  of  textile  work.  The 
engraver  copying  a  picture  (see  Chapter  XIX)  is 
translating  from  color  into  black  and  white,  and 
from  a  smooth  gradation  into  a  combination  of 
lines  which  imitate  gradation  (see  Chapters  VII 
and  XXV).  In  like  manner  the  weaver  or  tapestry- 
worker  may  be  translating  from  the  same  smooth 
gradation  of  pigments  mixed  with  oil  into  a  com- 
bination of  juxtaposed  tufts  or  knots  or  crossing 
threads  which  imitate  gradation.  But  such  trans- 
lation is  really  an  artistic  process  ;  because  the 
engraver  or  the  weaver  has  to  substitute  a  series  of 
artistic  thoughts  of  his  own  for  the  artistic  thought 
of  the  original. 

Still,  we  are  not  to  lose  sight  of  the  beauty  of 
the  web  itself.     This  cannot  be  called  an  artistic 

[an  ] 


TEXTILE 


A  R  T 


virtue ;  it  is  inherent  in  the  fabric,  just  as  the 
bookbinder's  leather  is  beautiful  as  the  result  of  a 
very  different  mechanical  process.  When  this 
web  is  so  fine,  so  "sheer,"  that  the  woven  nature 
of  the  fabric  disappears  in  a  general  translucency, 
the  thread  itself  seeming  to  be  transparent,  as  in 
the  finest  of  India  muslins,  a  new  beauty  arises, 
but  one  which  is  not  especially  characteristic  of 
textile  fabrics.  Such  muslins  are  now  no  longer 
made  in  India,  because  the  factory-made  white 
cottons  of  English  manufacture  have  simply  driven 
the  native  weavers  into  other  occupations  or  to 
starvation  ;  but  the  beauty  and  characteristic  charm 
of  the  thing,  the  culmination  of  skill  in  the  mak- 
ing of  such  fabrics  is  not  exactly  essential  to  its 
character  as  a  textile ;  that  charm  is  shared  by 
other  translucent  materials,  natural  and  artificial. 
On  the  other  hand,  many  stuffs  which  have  no 
pretensions  to  artistic  character  are  beautiful  to  the 
eye  as  they  are  agreeable  to  the  touch — as  partly 
explained  above.  A  case-full  of  strong  linen  with 
even  threads  is  attractive  to  the  eye;  all  the  simple 
diapers  and  twills  are  still  more  interesting  ;  a  dis- 
play of  towels  and  one  of  table-cloths  may  be  fas- 
cinating :  it  takes  all  the  harsh  bad-taste  of  the 
novelty-seeking  manufacturer  to  repel  the  lover  of 
textiles. 

A  singular  modification  of  this  simple  weaving 
is  introduced  when  a  ribbed  surface  is  desired, 
which  ribbed  surface  is  obtained  by  making  the 

[  212  ] 


M  O  D  I  F  ICATIONS   O  F   VV  E  A  V  I  N  G 


threads  running  one  way  of  the  stuff  very  stout,  or 
else  by  grouping  them  in  bundles  of  fine  fibres 
which  pack  closely  together.  Each  stout  thread 
or  bundle  of  fibres,  when  entirely  covered  by  the 
liner  threads  laid  in  close  sequence,  once  the  weav- 
ing is  done,  assumes  the  appearance  of  a  rib,  that 
term  being  forced  a  little  to  express  this  meaning. 
The  threads  which  show  are  generally  those  of  the 
warp  ;  the  woof  not  showing  at  all  except  as  its 
color  may  slightly  modify  the  effect  given  by  the 
visible  warp-threads.  Nothing  is  easier  than  to 
diversify  the  color  of  these  ribbed  fabrics  by  run- 
ning the  visible  warp  threads  in  different  colors, 
crossing  the  ribs  in  different  lines,  forming  stripes ; 
and  again  by  diversifying  these  so  that  a  blue  line 
made  by  two  or  three  fine  threads  may  break  and 
alternate,  each  stripe  covering  every  alternate  or 
every  third  rib.  In  this  way  a  broad  stripe  may 
be  checked  or  wrought  into  a  fret  or  key  pattern. 

Damask  linen  (a  very  different  thing  from 
damask)  is  produced  by  handling  the  threads  in 
such  a  way  that  one  whole  unit  of  the  pattern  con- 
sists of  threads  lying  in  one  direction  and  close 
together,  giving  a  glossy  effect  when  the  light 
strikes  it  and  is  reflected  from  it  at  one  angle,  thus 
contrasted  with  the  background  in  which  the  prin- 
cipal threads  lie  in  the  opposite  way,  and  tell  as  a 
glossy  surface  onlv  when  the  direction  of  the  light 
is  changed.  This  gives  the  effect  which  we 
describe  as  White  on  White,  that  is  to  say,  the 

[  ^3  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


two  surfaces  are  equally  white  (if  that  is  the  color 
of  the  bleached  linen)  but  as  they  reflect  the  light 
in  different  ways  according  to  the  position  of  the 
eye  the  pattern  will  appear  brilliant  upon  a  dusky 
ground,  or  dusky  upon  a  bright  ground.  The 
fact  that  the  two  sides  of  the  linen  generally  show 
the  same  pattern  in  reverse  is  an  illustration  of  the 
way  in  which  the  work  is  done  in  its  simplest 
manner  of  proceeding.  There  is  nothing  to  pre- 
vent the  damask  weave  being  backed  by  a  strong 
secondary  or  lining  fabric  beneath,  which  would 
of  course  conceal  the  "  wrong  "  side  of  the  stuff". 

The  modifications  of  the  process  of  weaving  on 
a  loom  which  are  requisite  when  the  pattern  is  to 
be  at  all  elaborate  are  so  very  great  and  peculiar 
that  they  could  hardly  be  explained  without  a 
series  of  diagrams.  The  pattern  shown  in  Fig.  75 
will  serve  to  illustrate  this.  It  will  be  observed 
that  the  figures  are  arranged  in  straight  horizontal 
lines,  the  term  "  horizontal  "  being  used  here  for 
the  breadth  of  the  cloth,  and  the  term  "vertical" 
for  its  length.  A  blue  thread  which  has  to  cross 
the  web  will  come  into  sight  on  the  surface  of  the 
stuff  only  once  in  each  one  of  these  figures,  forming 
then  a  blue  spot,  while  other  spots  of  different  tints 
unite  with  it  to  form  the  cloud,  the  sacred  pearl 
or  its  surrounding  flames,  or  any  scale  or  claw  of 
the  dragon.  These  reappearances  are,  however,  at 
regular  intervals  ;  and  it  will  be  seen  that  in  this 
case  not  one  half  of  the  cords  of  the  warp,  but 

[214] 


THE  WEAVING 


OF  COLORED 


PATTERNS 


only  a  certain  definite  number  of  them,  in  this 
case  seven,  come  to  the  front  or  to  the  top  with 
one  movement  of  the  movable  frame,  and  that  the 
blue  shuttle  flying  through,  leaves  all  of  its  thread 


Fig.  75.     Japanese  brocade,  dragons,  clouds,  and 
kylins  in  horizontal  bands 


below  the  surface  except  where  it  passes  these  seven 
raised  cords ;  that  is  to  say,  there  are  perhaps 
fifteen  inches  of  the  blue  thread  left  out  of  sight, 
hanging  loose  behind  the  fabric,  for  every  inch 
that  shows  in  the  pattern.  The  general  effect  of 
this  piece  of  silk  is  very  grave  and  calm,  a  score  of 

[215] 


TEXTILE 


ART 


colors  are  combined  to  give  a  harmony  like  that 
of  some  few  French  landscape  painters  of  1870  to 
1900,  men  who  used  bright  colors  to  secure  a 


Fig.   76.     Japanese  Brocade  woven  with  paper  strips  gilded 
on  one  side.     Pomegranates  and  Persian  Flowers 


grave  effect.  In  Fig.  76  there  is  used  a  large  pro- 
portionate amount  of  tough  paper  in  very  narrow 
strips,  woven  in  as  the  silk  thread  is  woven  in,  this 
paper  being  white  on  the  reverse  side  and  gilded 

[  216  ] 


THE  WEAVING  OF   COLORED  PATTERNS 


where  it  shows  on  the  face.  The  great  pome- 
granates, the  strange,  unreal  flowers  of  Persian  look, 
and  the  whole  pattern,  indeed,  are  supported  by, 
and,  as  it  were,  drawn  in  bright  gold  —  for  the 
metallic  lustre  of  this  gilded  paper  seems  never  to 
lose  its  brilliancy.  Silver-gilt  thread  (wire)  loses 
its  protective  gilding  and  becomes  tarnished  with 
a  singularly  beautiful  result ;  but  he  who  deals 
with  the  Oriental  paper-inlaid  brocades,  must 
count  upon  a  gold  which  will  be  always  gold  - 
the  colors  of  the  silk  may  fade,  but  the  metallic 
outline  holds  its  own.  In  the  piece  before  us,  the 
whole  background  is  of  a  subdued  scarlet,  slightly 
modified  by  the  slow  fading  of  the  hue,  which 
seems  to  tend  toward  a  brownish  orange.  That 
color  of  which  the  largest  total  surface  appears  in 
the  pattern  is  a  green  which  has  been  rather  bril- 
liant, but  is  constantly  broken  by  the  intermingling 
with  it  of  threads  now  pink,  now  deep  and  sombre 
blue,  now  violet,  now  bluish  white.  As  in  Fig. 
75,  the  horizontal  rows  of  flowers  in  the  same  pat- 
tern are  totally  different  in  color  effect :  thus,  the 
top  row  of  pomegranates  is,  in  the  original,  orange- 
colored  as  to  the  heart,  with  the  principal  sur- 
rounding leafage  bright  green  and  deep  blue ; 
while  the  next  repetition  of  the  same  flower  has 
the  fruit  itself  of  the  same  colors  distributed  in  the 
same  way,  while  the  leafage  around  is  totally  dif- 
ferent, —  pale  where  the  other  was  dark,  grave  and 
quiet  where  the  other  was  in  sharp  contrast.  This 

[  2I7  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


arranging  of  the  design  in  horizontal  stripes,  alike 
in  pattern  though  differing  in  color,  and  in  the  set 
of  the  silk  threads,  is  noticeable.  It  is  one  of  the 
limitations  of  design  for  the  weaver's  art,  this 
recurrence  at  equal  intervals  of  the  same  unit  of 
the  design.  It  would  not  be  weaving,  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  that  fabric  in  which  the  workman 
was  free  from  this  necessity  of  providing  for  con- 
stant repetition  of  the  same  forms  and  colors. 
This  is  what  differentiates,  the  most  noticeably, 
carpet-weaving,  as  practised  by  the  Orientals,  from 
weaving  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  The 
richest  "pall"  or  "tissue"  of  mediaeval  importa- 
tion from  the  East,  the  most  exquisite  Genoese  or 
Venetian  velvets,  and  the  most  gorgeous  flowered 
brocades  which  the  Japanese  make  for  the  kimono 
of  an  actress  or  a  favorite  geisha  are  all  restrained 
in  design,  though  certainly  not  in  the  sense  of 
inferiority,  by  these  recurrent  figures  of  the  pattern. 
The  Eastern  carpet-weaver  may,  however,  disre- 
gard this  regular  recurrence.  He  will  simply 
omit,  or  totally  change  the  unit  of  design.  The 
eight-pointed  stars  in  the  border  even  of  a  rug  of 
very  formal  pattern  will  vary  much,  and  unac- 
countably, in  color ;  but  the  weaver  would  not 
have  hesitated  to  adopt  still  more  marked  changes 
and  to  abandon  any  regular  system  of  returning  or 
repeated  colors,  or  even  to  change  the  set  pattern, 
in  case  a  color-pot  was  empty,  or  a  hank  of  thread 
was  diminishing  too  fast.    Also,  he  would  obey  a 

[218] 


T  H  E 


W  E  A  V  I  N  G   ( >  F 


FABRICS  WITH  PILE 


whim  of  his  own,  or  of  his  employer  ;  and  this 
without  any  great  shock  to  his  sense  of  artistic 
propriety  ;  while  the  loom,  of  very  simple  make 
and  management,  can  be  made  to  record  every 
changing  mood  of  the  artist. 

Fabrics  made  like  the  one  shown  in  Fig.  77, 
with  nap  or  pile,  are  produced  by  weaving  with 
loops  like  those  which,  when  drawn  tight,  form 
the  ribbed  fabric  described  above,  and  by  cutting 
those  loops  in  a  regular  and  uniform  way,  either 
by  hand  with  a  knife,  or  by  a  machine  which  takes 
off  the  upper  surface  of  each  loop.  The  same 
device  is  used  for  bringing  this  pile  to  a  perfectly 
uniform  smoothness.  It  is  cut  with  knives  or  it 
is  burned,  and  upon  a  careful  and  precise  doing  of 
this  final  work  much  of  the  beauty  depends.  Fig. 
77  is  an  Oriental  carpet  of  that  type  in  which  a 
strongly  marked  pattern  has  been  thought  inex- 
pedient. In  a  mixed  and  crowded  pattern  like 
this,  without  easily  traced  significance,  the  effects 
of  wear  or  of  accident  are  much  less  noticeable  ; 
but  one  of  the  greatest  beauties  of  Oriental  design 
—  a  matter  in  which  the  Easterners  excel  the 
men  of  Europe  of  all  ages  —  is  thus  neglected. 
Still,  this  pattern,  which  would  be  unattractive 
enough  in  silk  or  any  smooth-surfaced  textile 
whatsoever,  is  perfectly  presentable  in  the  pile 
fabric.  It  partakes  indeed  of  the  speckled  or 
"pepper-and-salt"  character  of  many  modern  Eu- 
ropean cloths  ;  but  still  the  deep  pile  with  its  soft 

[  2I9  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


surface  and  irregular  absorption  of  light  redeems 
the  whole.  It  may  be  thought  strange,  in  the  case 
of  velvets  and  similar  fabrics,  that  a  similar  cloud- 
ing and  undetermined  gradation  of  hue  and  tint 
has  not  been  employed  more  frequently,  for  it 


Fig.  77.     Oriental  carpet,  mixed  pattern 

(Marquand  Collection) 


would  seem  to  be  a  natural  way  to  give  an  added 
charm  to  the  material.  Plain  velvet  requires  the 
most  refined  care  in  the  weaving,  so  that  the  loops 
may  be  exactly  of  the  same  height,  and  the  cutting 
or  shearing  must  be  done  with  equal  care.  There 
is  a  still  greater  elaboration  of  the  material  in  what 
is  called  "  raised  "  velvet,  a  fabric  in  which  only 
the  pattern,  or  a  part  of  the  pattern,  is  in  velvet 

[  220  ] 


FABRICS   WITH   THE   PATTERN    IN  PILE 


pile,  the  rest  of  the  surface  being  left  smooth,  like 
satin  or  other  silk  fabric.  There  is  also  the  still 
more  elaborate  pile-upon-pile  velvet,  where  a  cer- 
tain pattern  is  woven  with  longer  loops  and  is  cut 


Fig.   78.     Part  of  chasuble  of  Genoa  velvet 

by  itself,  while  the  background  is  woven  with 
shorter  loops  and  again  is  cut  by  itself,  so  that  a 
deep  velvet  pile  is  relieved  upon  a  low  or  short 
velvet  pile  which  may  also  be  of  a  different  color. 
Fig.  78  shows  a  piece  of  Genoa  velvet  of  the 
seventeenth  century  forming  part  of  a  chasuble  ; 

[221  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


the  background  is  of  nearly  white  silk,  with  that 
ribbed  surface  which  is  made  by  fine  threads  in 
raised  loops  enclosing  a  cord  ;  but  the  surface  is 
lustrous  and  the  ridges  even  add  to  its  brilliancy. 
The  pattern  shown  in  the  paler  tint  is  of  green 
silk,  also  in  loops  which  rise  a  little  higher  than 
the  white  ridges  of  the  background.  The  darkest 
part  of  the  pattern  is  of  deep  green  velvet  pile  ; 
but  it  is  evident  that  this  dark  green  silk  was 
woven  in  just  such  loops  as  those  of  the  lighter 
pattern,  which  loops  were  afterwards  cut  or  shaved 
to  make  the  velvety  surface.  Velvets  are  made 
now  in  Venice,  in  close  imitation  of  those  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  it  must  be  allowed,  in  which 
fabrics  the  background  is  plain  smooth  silk,  or  silk 
with  a  very  slight  pattern  of  points  and  ridges, 
perhaps  in  uniform  color,  perhaps  with  mono- 
chromatic flowering  or  chequer,  with  a  pattern 
upon  this  in  short  velvet  pile,  and  upon  this  again 
a  pattern  in  longer  pile,  these  velvet  parts  being 
of  two,  three,  or  more  colors.  Such  elaborate 
figured  velvet  as  this  costs  from  sixty  to  one  hun- 
dred lire  a  yard  when  of  the  usual  width,  three 
quarters  of  a  yard  or  thereabout ;  but  nothing 
made  in  any  quantity  and  for  general  sale  in  our 
modern  epoch  is  of  greater  beauty  and  of  more 
satisfactory  design. 

Other  materials  than  threads  of  naturally  fibrous 
substance  enter  into  weaving,  and  that  very  largely 
in  the  more  ornamental  fabrics.    Paper,  gilded  and 


FABRICS 


PARTLY  OF 


METALLIC 


SURFACE 


cut  into  narrow  strips,  has  been  mentioned  above  ; 
but  paper  of  brown,  gray,  or  yellow  color  also 
occurs.     Gold  thread,  which  is  usually  thin  silver 


Fig.  79.     Modern  gold  and  silver  brocade 


wire  gilded,  or  rather  an  originally  stout  gilded 
silver  wire  which  has  been  pulled  out,  both  silver 
and  gold  together,  to  a  very  fine  thread,  is  used  in 
weaving  what  is  known  as  "gold  cloth"  or  gold 
and  silver  brocade,  and  this  again  is  modified  by 

[  223  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


the  introduction  into  some  stuffs  of  very  narrow, 
flat  strips  of  gilded  metal,  which  keep  their  color 
and  lustre  even  better  than  the  gilded  silver  wire, 
though  not  so  perfectly  as  paper.     Fig.  79  is  a 


Fig.  80.     Old  Venice  gold  brocade 


piece  of  stuff"  or  which  the  background  is  ribbed 
white  silk  with  pieces  of  flat  silver  foil  introduced 
into  it,  producing  a  lustrous  silvery  ground.  The 
small  flowers  are  in  colored  silk  of  four  hues. 
The  larger  flowers  are  entirely  in  gold,  nearly  the 
whole  being  of  gold  thread  of  round  section,  but 

[  "4  ] 


CLOTH    OF   GOLD   AND   GOLD  BROCADE 


with  the  more  brilliant  parts  at  the  opening  of  the 
blossoms  made  up  of  flat  strips  of  gilded  metal 
which  give  a  wonderful  play  of  light.  This  piece 
is  of  modern  Italian  manufacture,  costing  about 
three  hundred  lire  the  yard  of  the  usual  narrow 
width.  Fig.  80  is  a  part  of  an  altar  frontal  of 
Venetian  brocade,  probably  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. The  background  and  the  pale,  less  visible 
pattern  are  in  two  shades  of  yellowish  brown,  pale, 
or  now  much  faded,  and  the  strong  and  prominent 
pattern  is  entirely  in  "  gold  thread"  of  which  the 
gilding  has  largely  disappeared,  leaving  the  silver 
to  tarnish  ;  but  this  metal  filament  has  been  wound 
upon  a  yellow  silk  of  stronger  hue  than  any  part 
of  the  background,  and  in  this  way  an  element  of 
color  intensifies  and  warms  the  metallic  look  of 
the  surface.  The  piece  has  gained  rather  than 
lost  by  its  misfortunes  —  such  is  the  kindly  way 
in  which  time  deals  with  fine  designs. 

The  charm  which  textile  fabrics  have  for  the 
lover  of  color  and  of  color  design  never  grows  less 
powerful,  for  the  quality  of  the  material  and  its 
surface,  its  pliability  also,  and  capability  of  being 
arranged  in  folds,  the  exquisite  effect  of  elaborate 
patterns,  not  flat  as  when  printed  upon  wall-paper, 
but  modified  by  the  constant  gradation  of  the 
slight  irregularities  caused  by  the  weave  —  all 
of  these  peculiarities  together  make  an  important 
piece  of  decorative  brocade  or  velvet  one  of  the 

most  fascinating  things  that  a  lover  of  ornamental 

vol.  1  —  15  r  oor  1 


TEXTILE  ART 


art  can  possibly  handle,  while  simpler  weaves  are 
as  attractive,  though  they  may  demand  less  study. 
The  modification  ol  the  surface  of  stuff  by  em- 
broidery, treated  in  the  next  chapter,  is  a  beauti- 
ful art  by  itself,  and  one  to  be  considered  quite 
apart  from  the  beauty  which  is  essential  to  the 
textile  fabric  ;  and  it  may  be  that  the  true  lover 
of  textiles  will  never  care  quite  as  much  for  em- 
broidery, no  matter  how  splendid  and  refined  its 
results  may  be.  This  will  be  because  of  that  very 
formality  —  of  those  very  limitations  which  have 
been  alluded  to  above.  The  free  hand  of  the 
needle-woman  is  somehow  less  impressive  in  what 
it  achieves  than  the  set  purpose  of  the  weaver. 

Fig.  8 1  shows  a  piece  of  silk  in  which  the 
weaving  alone  has  produced  some  effects  very  like 
those  for  which  we  look  to  embroidery.  The 
surfaces  of  the  darkest  shade  are  green  silk  in  very 
fine  threads  and  of  a  considerable  gradation  of 
color,  passing  through  perhaps  a  dozen  separate 
dyes ;  and  all  this  silk  is  broche  on  the  surface  in 
such  a  way  that  the  fine  threads  hang  or  project 
very  loosely.  Where  the  background  color  sepa- 
rates the  patches  of  green,  marking  off"  the  petals 
of  the  flower,  the  green  silk  threads  go  out  of 
sight  in  the  weave  exactly  as  they  do  in  the  larger 
patches  of  background,  and  there  they  are  held 
fast ;  but  each  loop  of  green  silk  is  so  loose  that  a 
stout  bodkin  could  be  run  behind  it  at  any  point, 
and  without  using  force. 

[  226  ] 


PECULIAR   AND   UNUSUAL  WEAVES 


Another  and  a  very  different  kind  of  weave  has 
been  used  in  the  piece  shown  in  Fig.  82  ;  a  pro- 
cess not  known  in  Europe.     The  background  of 
uniform  blue  is  separate  from  the  pattern  of  white 


Fig.  81.     Part  of  chasuble,  green  silk 

and  different  greens,  except  for  the  threads  of  the 
warp.  A  very  slight  effort  will  pull  the  two 
stuffs  apart,  at  the  outline  of  any  leaf  or  petal, 
enough  "  to  show  daylight  "  through  the  fabric. 
This  process  is  used  for  very  splendid  materials 
woven  in  plain,  strong,  primary  colors  beautifully 
combined  ;  but  the  writer  has  never  seen  gold  or 

[  227  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


silver,  either  in  threads  or  strips,  introduced  into 
the  fabric. 

Carpet  weaving  has  attracted  so  much  attention 
in   connection  with   the  make  of  Oriental  rugs 


Fig.  82.     Part  of  Chinese  gown,  blue  ground 


that  the  principles  of  the  fabrication  are  pretty 
well  understood.  The  workmen  who  produce 
the  finest  pieces  are  those  who  have  the  simplest, 
or  very  simple,  machines,  those  who  inhabit  a 
warm  climate  like  the  northern  provinces  of  India, 

[  228  ] 


THE   WEAVING   OF  CARPETS 


working  out  of  doors  ;  while  the  Persian  frames 
are  hardlv  more  finished  or  more  elaborate  than 
those  of  the  Indians.  It  is  to  be  admitted,  how- 
ever, that  only  small  rugs  are  producible  by  these 
most  simple  appliances  :  and  that  very  large  Per- 
sian rugs  of  fine  old  fabrication  show  all  the  signs 
of  having  been  woven  slowly,  with  great  delibera- 
tion in  the  handling  of  the  design,  and  by  means 
of  specially  built  looms.  They  are  of  course  very 
costly  ;  and  yet  have  generally  less  charm  for  the 
student  of  decorative  art  than  the  smaller,  fortu- 
nately more  common,  weaves.  The  attempt  of 
the  British  government  in  India  to  have  carpet 
weaving  done  in  the  jails  of  that  country  has  re- 
sulted in  the  preservation  and  reproduction  of 
good  old  patterns,  and  in  providing  Western  mar- 
kets with  rugs  that  have  much  charm,  preserving 
as  they  do  so  much  of  the  old  patterns  and  colors 
as  is  compatible  with  perfect  regularity  of  work. 
The  real  glory  or  the  Eastern  rug  is  not  in  such 
regularity.  It  depends  largely  upon  strange  and 
unexpected  modifications  of  color,  and  slight 
changes  in  the  form  of  the  pattern  ;  as  has  been 
suggested  above.  This  has  been  partly  guessed  by 
the  intelligent  dealers  who  undertake  to  supply 
Europe  with  Eastern  fabrics,  and  a  somewhat 
elaborate  system  ot  changing  dyes,  even  in  surfaces 
of  one  general  color,  is  followed  in  the  modern 
rugs  made  to  their  order.  Decided  gradations 
from  darker  to  lighter  and  even  in  hue,  as  from 

[  229  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


browner  to  a  redder  orange,  are  constantly  seen, 
even  in  modern  rugs  of  no  very  great  cost.  Even 
the  irregularity  of  pattern  is  attempted,  and  with 
so  much  success  that  the  unpractised  student  is 
often  betrayed  into  thinking  that  the  piece  before 
him,  at  least,  must  be  of  genuine  up-country 
make  and  of  the  time  previous  to  the  coming  of 
the  Western  employer. 

Tapestry  1  is  made  by  a  slow  process  in  which 
the  artist  with  his  colored  cartoon  beside  him,  but 
facing  the  back  of  his  future  piece  of  tapestry, 
secures  upon  a  framework  of  parallel  cords  thread 
after  thread  of  colored  worsted,  such  as  he  selects 
to  match  the  colors  of  his  cartoon.     In  the  Gobe- 

1  Tapestry :  A  fabric  made  by  passing  the  threads  which  are  to  form 
the  pattern,  and  which  alone  are  to  be  shown,  between  the  fixed  strings 
of  the  warp,  alternately,  as  in  common  weaving,  but  carrying  this  weave 
only  as  far  with  each  thread  as  that  particular  thread  is  needed,  —  perhaps 
to  cover  onlv  two  or  four  warp-strings, — not  often  across  the  whole 
breadth  of  the  stuff.  The  weaver  has  as  many  shuttles  or  bobbins  or 
"needles"  as  he  has  different  colors:  beginning  at  the  bottom,  he 
carries  his  pale  blue  thread  (for  instance)  through  an  inch  only  of  the 
width  of  the  stuff,  once  through  and  back  again,  and  pounds  down  into 
place  that  woven-in  pale-blue  thread,  with  a  "  comb  "  of  bone  or  ivory. 
Then  comes  perhaps  a  slightly  darker  blue  ;  it  is  carried  through  an  inch 
and  a  quarter  alongside  of  the  first  patch  —  on  a  level  with  it,  and  also 
above  it  for  a  little  way.  In  this  way  the  finished  piece  of  the  work 
grows  irregularly  on  either  side  and  upward.  Forty  colors  perhaps  may 
be  in  use  at  once  :  they  are  wrought  into  each  other  by  slow  accretion  ; 
the  broken  lines  of  color  are  used  like  the  hatchings  of  a  drawing.  The 
work,  therefore,  resembles  in  its  nature  that  done  in  making  needle-made 
lace  :  each  is  an  embroiderv,  not  upon  a  completed  surface,  but  upon  a 
mere  screen  of  cords  or  strings  or  threads  In  each  operation,  the  em- 
broidering creates  the  stuff,  which  has  no  existence  until  the  decorative 
shuttle-work  or  needle-work  is  done. 

[  2JO  ] 


THE 


WEAVING 


OF 


T  APES  T  R  Y 


lins  establishment  in  Paris,  the  haute  lisse  process  is 
the  only  one  used ;  the  threads  of  the  warp  are 
vertical ;  the  workman  can  walk  round  to  the 
front  of  his  growing  piece  and  examine  it.  When 
the  parallel  cords  (the  warp)  are  held  horizontal, 
the  tapestry  is  made  face  downward,  and  the  work- 
man cannot  see  it  without  unshipping  his  frame  : 
this  process  is  called  "  low  warp  "  [basse  lisse). 
As  the  slow  building-up  of  the  mosaic  of  threads, 
for  such  it  really  is,  allows  of  an  indefinite  amount 
of  delicate  gradation  in  the  colors  and  of  a  very 
close  approximation  to  precise  accuracy  in  the  fol- 
lowing of  curved  lines,  no  matter  how  subtle  their 
curvature,  the  worker  in  tapestry  is  always  tempted 
into  design,  which,  though  possible  to  him,  is  still 
more  triumphantly  possible  to  painting. 

This  tendency  is  helped  by  the  obvious  fact  that 
there  must  be  a  carefully  made  colored  drawing 
from  which  the  worker  at  the  frame  must  take 
every  detail  of  his  work  ;  and  that  this  drawing 
will  be  made  by  one  who  is  not  himself  such  a 
worker.  It  is  therefore  easy  and  natural,  almost 
inevitable,  that  the  maker  of  this  cartoon  should 
forget  his  terms  of  service  to  the  tapestry  loom, 
and  expatiate  as  a  painter  !  He  is  probably,  in 
fact  or  in  desire,  a  member  of  the  confraternity 
of  painters:  he  is  ready  at  all  times  to  overstep 
the  boundaries  of  the  other  art.  The  famous 
portraits  framed  into  the  wall  of  the  Gallery  of 
Apollo  in  the   Louvre,  remarkable  achievements 

[  231  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


of  the  Gobelins  factory,  would  be  better  if  they 
were  painted  as  well  in  proportion  as  they  are 
worked  in  tapestry ;  and  the  same  skill  which 
went  to  those  achievements  would  have  gone 
further  if  used  in  a  composition  such  as  tapestry 
alone  could  do  full  justice  to.  This  depends  partly 
upon  the  softness  and  flow  of  tapestry,  which, 
though  not  equal  to  that  of  thinner  material,  is 
very  great  when  it  is  used  in  the  large  pieces 
which  are  commonly  hung  upon  walls.  The 
object  of  tapestry,  the  purpose  to  which  it  was 
originally  applied,  is  the  covering  and  concealing 
of  walls,  and  when  this  is  carried  out  —  when  the 
arras  is  hung  by  tenterhooks  near  the  ceiling  and 
swings  free  without  anything  to  draw  it  tight 
except  its  own  weight  and  the  setting  of  the  rings 
upon  the  tenterhooks  so  that  the  top  edge  is  rea- 
sonably strained  —  the  colors  and  the  peculiar  sur- 
face of  the  tapestry  are  seen  to  the  best  advantage. 
Even  if  it  is  used  as  a  curtain  and  allowed  to  fall 
in  great  folds  which  are  more  or  less  adjustable, 
and  often  readjusted,  the  charm  of  tapestry  may  be 
at  the  full,  for  it  is  the  best  tapestry  when  its 
color  design  is  such  that  this  breaking  up  into 
folds  improves  rather  than  injures  the  resulting 
effect. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  tapestry  is  to  be  designed 
with  a  single  aim,  that  of  decorative  effect.  The 
wise  designer  does  not  try  to  represent  natural 
scenery  or  single  objects,  man  or  beast  or  tree,  but 

[  *3'2  ] 


P  ILLO  W   O  R   BOBBIN   LA  C  E 


uses  them  all  as  suggestions  toward  his  proposed 
design  in  color.  The  composer  in  mosaic,  or  in 
that  translucent  mosaic  of  the  colored  window 
(see  Chapter  XVIII),  is  restrained,  for  his  good,  by 
very  similar  laws. 

Lace  1  again  is  a  manufacture  of  great  decorative 
effect  with  very  severe  limitations.  It  is  of  two 
kinds,  not  so  readily  distinguishable  when  complete 
and  put  to  use,  as  distinct  in  their  make.  In  each 
the  thread  is  interlaced,  tied,  and  knotted  to  form 
a  meshed  background  with  a  figure  upon  it,  but  in 
the  one  case  these  threads  are  twisted,  plaited,  and 
knotted  together  by  the  ringers  which  handle 
threads  kept  in  place  —  held  down — by  certain 
rather  heavy  pendulous  pieces  of  bone  or  wood 
(rarely  lead)  known  as  bobbins,  which  are  made 

1  Lace,  in  decorative  art:  A  fabric  of  threads  woven,  twisted,  or 
plaited  together,  but  differing  from  other  textile  fabric  or  needle-work  by 
its  open  make,  with  meshes  large  in  proportion  to  the  thickness  of  the 
threads,  and  having  no  solid  or  close-woven  surfaces  except  small  parts  of 
the  ornamental  pattern.  Its  effectiveness  in  design  is  gained  by  the  very 
fact  of  its  being  open,  so  as  to  show  in  a  light  color  upon  the  darker 
ground  of  a  garment  ;  or,  in  the  case  of  black  or  the  rare  colored  laces, 
to  show  its  pattern  as  relieved  upon  white  or  a  light  color.  The  names 
given  to  different  kinds  of  laces,  as  from  the  nations  or  towns,  Alen^on, 
Angleterre,  Argentan,  Bruxelles  (Brussels),  and  the  like,  have  wholly 
lost  their  geographical  significance.  "  English  Point ' '  is  made  in  Auvergne, 
and  "Point  de  France"  in  Venice.  Moreover,  the  names  as  used  for 
the  laces  sold  in  the  shops- are  no  longer  of  any  close  or  continued  appli- 
cation. Just  as  the  name  "  seersucker,"  when  that  striped  stuff  went  out 
of  fashion,  was  given  in  the  shops  to  a  wholly  different  material,  so  the 
trade  names  of  lace  have  ceased  to  correspond  to  those  used  by  collectors. 
The  student  of  the  terminology  of  lace  should  consult  the  books  by  M. 
Seguin,  Mrs.  Bury  Palliser,  Ernest  Lefebure,  and  Mrs.  Jackson. 

[  233  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


fast  each  to  the  end  of  the  thread.  The  variety  of 
pattern  and  of  the  character  of  surface  obtainable 
in  this  way  is  likely  to  surprise  one  to  whom  the 
subject  is  new.  Thus  in  Fig.  83  is  shown  a  fabric 
just  as  simply  woven  out  of  stout  threads  as  any 


Fig.  83.    Genoa  guipure,  seventeenth  century 


piece  of  "sheeting";  and  Fig.  84  gives  such 
another  piece  of  string-work  ;  only,  in  this  piece 
there  seems  to  have  been  added  a  little  embroidery 
—  a  little  needle-work  —  to  the  brides,  or  cross- 
pieces,  which  hold  the  fabric  together.  The 
threads  of  bobbin  lace  can  be  drawn  tight  into 
opaque  and  solid  fabric,  or  a  surface  unlike  any- 
thing woven  in  the  usual  way  but  equally  firm  and 
durable,  or  thev  can  be  left  in  a  slight  open  mesh, 
hexagonal  or  square,  upon  which  the  pattern  may 

[  234  ] 


PILLOW   OR   BOBBIN  LACE 


be  sewed  or  which  may  itself  be  broken  up  by  the 
interposition  of  blocks  of  the  solid  fabric  men- 
tioned above.  Thus  in  Fig.  85  there  are  contrasted 
an  elaborate  mesh-background  and  a  very  solid 
and  uniform  tape-like  scroll  and  flower.     Lace  in 


Fig.  84.     Early  Italian  passamans  (passement) 

its  artistic  character  must  be  left  for  the  next  chap- 
ter, but  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the  essential 
character  of  it  was  fixed  by  the  use  of  the  twisted 
threads  hanging  from  a  cushion  and  manipulated 
by  hand  without  the  use  of  the  sharp  point  or 
of  any  tool  whatever,  and  that  needle-point  lace 
is  an  addition,  a  modification  of  the  original  man- 
ufacture by  the  methods  of  the  embroiderer. 
The  lover  of  handwork  for   its   own   sake  and 

[  235  ] 


TEXTILE  ART 


because  it  is  handwork,  will  be  apt  to  prefer  bob- 
bin   lace    to   point    lace,  and  sixteenth-century 


Fig.  85.     False  Valenciennes  ;  Flemish  work,  eighteenth  century 


work  to  that  fostered  by  Colbert  and  taken  up  by 
imitators  of  the  French  in  other  lands,  no  matter 
how  splendid  the  latter  may  be  to  the  eye. 


[  236  ] 


Chapter  Thirteen 


EMBROIDERY 

DECORATIVE  needle-work,  though 
certainly  familiar  to  the  ancients,  has 
made  little  impression  upon  modern 
students  as  an  important  branch  of 
pre-christian  adornment.  The  tombs  of  Egypt 
have  preserved  a  few  pieces  of  embroidery  ;  but 
practically  the  beautiful  work  of  the  Egyptian  as 
of  the  Grecian  maidens  has  disappeared,  together 
with  the  delicate  linens  and  woollens  upon  which 
they  wrought  their  designs.  The  patterns  repro- 
duced from  ancient  garments,  in  color  on  painted 
statues  (see  Chapters  V  and  XXIV),  in  mono- 
chrome on  vases,  and  in  engraving  on  Assyrian 
bas-reliefs  are  not  to  be  understood  as  assuredly 
wrought  by  the  needle.  In  very  many  cases  it  is 
a  textile  pattern  rather  than  needle-work  that  is 
represented  ;  and,  again,  many  a  representation  in 
ancient  wall-painting  or  relief  sculpture  of  a  fig- 
ured canopy,  or  sail,  or  wall-hanging,  suggests  to 
the  archaeologist  an  original  of  painted  cloth. 
For  that  pretty  art  of  painting  the  textile  fabric, 
in  patterns,  attends  upon  embroidery,  accompanies 

[  237  ] 


EMBROIDER V 


it  even  in  the  same  piece,  suggests  new  combina- 
tions, and  prepares  the  way  tor  new  triumphs. 

For  our  studies,  the  oldest  embroidery  is  Euro- 
pean, and  dates  from  the  Western  nations  of  the 
ninth  century,  although  perhaps  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury is  rather  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  useful 
progress.  The  Moslem  work  comes  later  ;  even 
the  exquisite  needle-work  of  Persia  and  India  is 
not  known  to  us  as  of  a  time  earlier  than  the  fif- 
teenth century  a.d.  ;  exceptions  occur  only  in 
fragments  so  small  and  so  relatively  unimportant 
as  to  be  but  the  slightest  guide  toward  theories 
concerning  the  earlier  development  of  the  art. 

In  the  European  Middle  Ages,  however,  with 
an  impoverished  people,  and  an  unsettled  govern- 
ment never  reaching  far,  controlling  the  action  of 
only  small  communities,  without  systematic  poli- 
cing or  control  over  high  and  low  alike,  without 
systematic  and  regulated  industry,  while  there 
was  an  almost  complete  inability  to  change  one's 
place  of  habitation  except  as  a  poverty-stricken 
wanderer  on  foot,  at  the  mercy  of  every  strong 
thief  and  every  tvrant  who  was  beating  up  con- 
scripts for  his  petty  wars,  —  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
a  time  whose  distresses  were  lightened  by  that 
which  a  more  sagacious  and  intellectual  age  is 
devoid  of,  a  sense  of  the  value  of  pictured  and 
figured  art,  bringing  with  it  a  true  sense  of 
decorative  design, — those  arts  flourished  which 
could  be   practised   in   his  own   shed,   near  his 

[  238  ] 


ITS   SIMPLE  APPLIANCES 


own  fireside,  by  the  individual  of  but  small 
knowledge  and  of  little  social  importance.  It 
was  the  development  of  this  mood  of  mind 
that  made  Gothic  architecture  what  it  was,  as 
is  set  forth  in  Chapters  XIV  and  XXVI  ;  but 
the  art  of  embroidery  was  sure  to  flourish  under 
such  circumstances,  even  as  the  art  of  illumination 
and  the  painting  of  miniatures  in  books  would 
flourish  wherever  men  were  well  enough  in- 
formed to  write  on  leaves  of  vellum  and  to  care 
to  bind  them  together  into  books.  All  that  was 
needed  for  the  embroiderer's  work  was  the  piece 
of  reasonably  solid  textile  material  or  leather,  a 
needle,  and  some  thread.  Beauty  of  pattern  was 
as  obtainable  with  coarse  flax  or  woollen  thread 
spun  from  the  distaff  as  if  the  appliances  at  the 
disposal  of  the  workwoman  had  been  more  nu- 
merous and  more  elaborate.  Beauty  of  color 
came  afterwards  and  was  separate,  a  thing  which 
might  or  might  not  form  a  part  of  the  embroid- 
ery considered  as  a  work  of  art. 

Any  one  who  has  seen  an  initial  worked  with 
the  needle  on  the  corner  of  a  handkerchief  in 
white  thread  has  seen  what  the  greater  part  of 
embroidery  consists  of,  —  that  is  to  say,  of  stitches 
taken  through  and  through  the  stuff,  lying  side 
by  side  or  crosswise,  and  producing  a  slightly 
relieved  figure  upon  the  smooth  surface.  The 
greater  number  of  stitches  and  "  points  "  which 
are  mentioned  in  treatises  on  embroidery  are  mere 

[  239  ] 


E  M  BR  01  D  E  R  V 


changes  in  the  way  the  needle  goes  in  and  comes 
out  again,  and  in  the  resulting  loops  and  their 
combinations.  There  are,  however,  some  other 
processes  which  should  be  named  ;  thus  Couching 


Fig.  86.     Embroidery  in  silk  with  couching  of  gold  cord. 
Japanese  work,  eighteenth  century 

is  the  laying  down  of  the  thread,  or  bundle  of 
threads  of  the  cord  or  wire,  usually  a  rather  stout 
one,  flat  upon  the  surface  of  the  stuff  which  is  to 
be  embroidered,  and  the  holding  of  this  in  place 
by  little  stitches  of  thread  meant  to  be  as  nearly 

[  240  ] 


COUCHING   AND   CUSHION  WORK 


invisible  as  possible,  but  which  are  in  some  cases 
made  to  tell  by  their  color  upon  the  couched 
cord,  as  when  a  gold  couching  is  given  a  warm 
tone  by  being  held  down  by  stitches  of  red  thread. 
Fig.  86  shows  a  piece  ot  Japanese  embroidery 
done  in  large  part  by  couching.  The  whole  back- 
ground being  pale  red,  the  semblance  of  a  basket 
is  produced  with  gold  cord,  laid,  some  twenty 
lengths,  side  by  side,  each  two  adjoining  pieces 
held  down  by  stitches  of  white  thread  ;  the  little 
suggestions  of  mountain  landscape  are  made  by 
the  same  arrangement  ot  gold  cord  ;  the  chrysan- 
themums, which  show  so  dark  in  the  photograph, 
are  of  scarlet  silk,  each  strand  a  twisted  rope  of 
fine  threads,  and  so  on  ;  these  and  the  little  knots 
which  pass  for  trees  on  the  mountains  being  mere 
stitching.  So  embroidery  on  padding,  known  as 
Relief  embroidery,  Raised  Satin  Stitch,  and  what 
not,  consists  of  surface  material  of  the  color  and 
texture  desired  put  upon  cushions  of  inferior  ma- 
terial which  is  usually  hidden  altogether.  Thus 
in  Fig.  87,  a  Persian  saddle-cloth,  the  ground 
is  plain  blue  silk,  and  upon  this  the  whole  design 
is  raised  in  relief  higher  than  that  in  any  one  of 
'the  pieces  illustrated  in  Chapter  XXI  —  higher 
than  any  struck  coin  or  medallion.  This  is  all 
done  with  yellow  thread,  silk  and  cotton  together, 
laid  flat,  layer  over  layer,  and  then  covered  with 
stitching  in  the  same  thread  mingled  with  gold. 
Applique  embroiderv  is  that  in  which  a  piece 

VOL.  I  —  16  f   n  ,  t  1 


EMBROIDERY 


or  many  pieces  of  silk,  or  cloth,  or  even  of  such 
material  already  charged  with  embroidery,  are  ap- 
plied to  the  surface  of  the  fabric  to  be  adorned, 


Fig.  87.     Embroidery  on  silk,  the  flowers  and  leaves  in  relief 
in  cushions  of  yellow  silk  faced  with  gold  thread. 
Persian  work,  seventeenth  century 

and  held  in  place  by  stitching  around  the  edges. 
The  piece  so  put  on  may  itself  be  of  the  greatest 
richness,  the  whole  acting  like  an  encrusted  enamel 

[  242  ] 


ITS   USE    IN  HERALDRY 


in  a  plain  metal  surface ;  but  the  essential  thing 
in  applique  work  is  that  the  piece  so  added  should 
be  in  itself  an  addition  to  the  general  design,  as 
affording  a  patch  of  color,  large  and  solid  and  of 
any  appropriate  shape,  of  a  kind  hardly  to  be 
obtained  by  needle-work  except  at  a  great  cost  of 
labor.  Where  embroidery  has  a  definite  story  to 
tell,  as  where  it  is  of  heraldic  purpose,  the  bear- 
ings to  be  charged  upon  the  escutcheon  may  often 
be  obtained  more  intelligently,  and  therefore  more 
usefully,  by  being  cut  out  of  another  piece  of 
cloth,  for  heraldic  coloring  is  nearly  always  flat 
and  without  gradations,  as  shown  in  Chapter  XX. 
Thus,  if  you  have  a  red  lion  to  charge  1  upon  a 
gold  field  it  is  not  so  hard  to  cut  out  your  lion 
from  a  piece  of  red  cloth,  taking  great  pains  that 
he  shall  cover  with  his  body,  legs,  and  sweeping 
tail  as  much  of  the  ground  as  possible,  and  then  to 
apply  and  sew  down  this  red  silhouette  upon  the 
ground.  That  ground  you  then  fill  up,  around 
the  lion,  with  just  so  much  gold  thread  work, 
probably  "  couched "  rather  than  drawn  through 
the  stuff,  as  will  make  the  whole  blank  surface 
of  the  quartering  look  as  if  it  were  gilded. 
This  heraldic  embroidery  played  a  great  part 
in  the  years  of  the  later  Middle  Ages,  when 
men  of  rank  wore  surcoats  or  jupons  over  their 
armor,   these  jupons  being    often    worked  with 


1  Charge  (v.  t.)  :  in  Heraldry  to  put  one  heraldic  bearing  upon  an- 
other, or  upon  the  escutcheon. 

[  ] 


EM B ROIDEH V 


the  bearings  of  the  owner,  repeated  over  and  over 
again  on  front  and  back,  on  body  and  sleeves  and 
skirts. 

At  a  later  time  it  was  especially  in  the  adorn- 
ment of  clerical  dresses  —  robes  and  accessory  gar- 
ments lor  the  ceremony  of  the  Mass — to  which 
embroidery  was  applied  with  more  especial  rich- 
ness and  splendor.  The  cope,  which  is  a  great 
cloak,  approximately  semicircular  in  shape  when 
laid  out  flat,  and  which  usually  has  a  kind  of  hood 
(or  what  was  originally  a  hood)  hanging  in  the 
middle  of  the  back  ;  the  dalmatic,  which  was  a 
garment  like  a  herald's  tabard  1  with  short  sleeves, 
usually  not  completed,  nor  closed  beneath  the  arm, 
but  covering  the  upper  part  of  the  arm  alone  (see 
Fig.  88)  ;  the  chasuble,  which  was  made  up  of 
a  breastplate  and  backpiece,  the  two  held  together 
by  broad  straps  over  the  shoulders,  but  otherwise 
wholly  open  ;  the  stole,  which  was  a  narrow  strip 
laid  over  the  shoulders,  passing  around  the  neck 
like  the  collar  of  a  coat  and  hanging  down  on 
either  side  in  long,  pendulous  bands,  sometimes 
wider  at  the  ends  than  above,  — -  all  these  were 
made  splendid,  sometimes  by  their  material,  the 
most  costly  that  might  be  within  reach,  but  also 
very  often  of  plain  silk  elaborately  embroidered. 

1  Tabard :  since  the  abandonment  of  complete  armor  for  the  body,  an 
official  outer  cloak,  for  a  herald  or  pursuivant  ;  that  is,  for  the  officer  making 
special  proclamation  or  supposed  to  direct  certain  court  functions.  Il  is 
short,  with  short  or  open  sleeves,  and  embroidered  with  the  arms  of  the 
sovereign  whom  the  herald  represents. 

[  244  ] 


ITS   USE   IN   LITURGICAL  VESTMENTS 


This  needle-work  was  often  in  floss  silk  or  what 
most  nearly  corresponded  to  that  modern  material, 
and  such  a  surface  as  that  would  wear  out  easily  ; 


Fig.  88.     Dalmatic,  embroidered  very  heavily  in  silk  or 
many  colors.     Italian  work,  seventeenth  century 

and  it  is  therefore  often  found  much  worn  at  the 
places  where  the  officiant's  hands  rubhed  or  pressed 
it  as  he  performed  his  office  ;  but  the  pieces,  how- 

[  ^45  ] 


E  M  B  II  0 1  D  E  R  V 


ever  injured,  remain  always  magnificent  in  effect. 
The  pattern  of  these  pieces  usually  retained  a  cer- 
tain mediaeval,  or  at   least  an  early  Renaissance, 


Fig.  89.     Part  of  a  chasuble,  embroidery  on  white  ground  with 
silk  of  many  colors.     Italian  work,  sixteenth  century 

character,  —  even  when  the  piece,  as  is  certain 
from  the  quality  of  the  silk  which  forms  its  chief 
material,  is  evidently  of  a  later  date.  Thus  in 
the  chasuble,  Fig.  89,  the  pattern  of  scroll-work, 

[  246  ] 


ITS   PICTORIAL  ASPECT 


shown  as  large  as  possible,  with  just  that  termina- 
tion of  each  spray  and  just  that  enrichment  where 
sprays  meet  and  part,  is  of  the  years  before  1580  ; 
but  these  patterns  linger  on  in  church  embroidery 
even  while  they  change  rapidly  in  other  decora- 
tion. It  is  curious  to  see  how  late  the  early 
patterns  hold,  in  this  particular  branch  of  decora- 
tive art. 

Sometimes,  and  especially  in  Spain,  though 
oddly  enough  the  same  tendency  is  visible  in 
English  mediaeval  work,  the  embroidery  in  soft, 
fluffy  silk  took  on  a  pictorial  aspect.  The  scrolls, 
of  not  very  naturalistic  design,  were  used  as  frames 
for  a  picture,  for  it  can  be  called  nothing  else,  — 
a  picture  of  a  saint  or  even  of  a  biblical  or  legen- 
dary event.  The  needle-worker  was,  in  intention 
at  least,  a  painter  ;  and  the  Crucifixion,  a  glory  of 
angels,  whatever  would  be  a  chosen  subject  for 
wall-work  or  window-work,  was  intrusted  also  to 
floss  silk  and  the  needle.  The  drawing  would  be 
unskilful  and  even  inartistic  in  character  ;  but  the 
color  effects  would  be  fine.  Such  work  is  de- 
signed exactly  on  the  same  lines  as  the  painting 
of  the  same  epoch  ;  the  long  stitches  of  soft  thread 
cover  the  ground  almost  exactly  as  brush-strokes 
with  paint  might  cover  it  ;  and,  naturally,  the  fig- 
ures and  the  composition  are  not  those  of  needle- 
work. Once  put  the  antiquity  of  the  piece  out  of 
mind,  its  rarity,  its  sincerity,  its  relation  to  other 
fine  art  of  the  time,  and  it  is  rather  unattractive. 

[  247  ] 


EMBROID  E  R  Y 


Such  representative  or  narrative  work  has  been 
done  in  very  recent  times  by  ladies  who  have 
heartily  enjoyed  such  unrestrained  play  of  fancy, 
—  the  needle  and  the  soft  silk,  the  wheat-ears  and 
banded  bees  shown  in  gold  on  a  golden-brown 
ground,  the  autumn  foliage,  the  spring  blossoms, 
many-colored,  in  their  relief  upon  a  sky-blue 
ground.  There  is  a  charm  in  such  work,  but  it 
is  the  charm  of  childish  attempts  at  fine  art,  — 
the  charm  of  a  not  very  intelligent  archaism. 
English  embroidery  was  celebrated  all  over  Eu- 
rope in  the  Middle  Ages,  perhaps  on  account  of 
the  greater  richness  of  the  designs  undertaken. 
The  same  people  who  preferred  for  themselves 
the  more  "  legitimate  "  designs  of  no  immediate 
external  significance  might  admire  as  a  rarity  the 
pictorial  work  of  the  islanders. 

The  tendency  above  mentioned  to  make  the 
embroidered  surfaces  soft  and  perishable  is  gen- 
erally avoided  by  Oriental  workmen  ;  although 
most  elaborate  specimens  of  loose  and  even  semi- 
detached applications  of  soft  silk  fibres  are  seen 
associated  with  solid  work.  The  people  of  north- 
ern India,  including  Cashmir  and  those  of  Persia, 
affect,  as  is  well  known,  a  kind  of  needle-work  in 
which  the  silk  is  as  tightly  drawn  as  possible  and 
forms  a  solid  and  almost  imperishable  fabric, 
which  moreover  is  usually  applied  to  a  very  trust- 
worthy material.  Fig.  90  shows  another  saddle- 
cloth   in  which  the  pattern  in  primary  colors  and 

[  248  ] 


WORK   OF  WESTERN  ASIA 


white  are  wrought  upon  a  crimson  ground  ;  the 
whole  work  kept  very  flat  and  tight.  A  student 
of  costume  will  rind  interesting:  not  the  embroid- 


■V-  '/ 


'4?. 


Fig.  90.     Embroidery  on  silk.    Persian  work,  seventeenth  century 

ered  shawls  and  hangings  alone,  but  the  garments 
of  many  kinds  in  use  in  Persia,  in  Afghanistan,  so 
far  as  that  is  a  quiet  and  settled  country,  or  has 
been  so,  and  in  India.  The  same  kind  of  stitch  is 
used,  and  the  same  colors  are  applied  in  the  adorn- 

[  249  ] 


E  M  15  R  O  1 1)  E  R  Y 


ment  of  women's  garments  in  use  in  Persia  to- 
day, the  outline  and  hang  of  which  seem  clumsy 
to  us ;  but  the  embroidered  surface  is  beautiful 
beyond  any  possibility  of  Western  handiwork. 

The  people  of  Greece,  of  Albania,  Montenegro, 
and  Bosnia  are  great  in  embroidery,  and  so  are 
those  of  Asia  Minor.  The  designs  are  nearly 
always  traditional,  and  in  almost  every  case  could 
be  traced  back  to  their  origin  if  one  took  pains 
enough,  but  they  are  in  daily  use,  and  serve  to 
adorn  pieces  which  are  sent  with  the  bride  to  her 
new  home,  or  are  worn  by  her  as  maid,  wife,  and 
mother,  through  a  long  lifetime.  The  use  of 
embroidery  in  this  way  tends  in  a  direction  coun- 
ter to  our  notions  of  personal  cleanliness.  Thus 
the  heavily  wrought  robe  of  the  Greek  peasant 
can  hardly  be  washed  except  in  the  unembroid- 
ered  parts,  and  that  only  by  holding  the  worked 
skirt  up  out  of  the  water,  while  the  parts  most 
needing  to  be  cleansed,  or  those  more  easily 
cleansed,  are  dipped  and  rubbed  and  beaten  and 
then  slowly  dried.  It  is  one  of  the  many  in- 
stances in  which  the  modern  tendencies  of  all 
sorts,  even  those  which  we  think  the  most  whole- 
some and  essential,  work  against  the  beautiful  arts 
of  our  predecessors  on  this  planet. 

Chinese  embroidery  is  less  known  in  the  West 
than  it  should  be.  Our  fathers  used  to  bring 
crape  shawls  (Canton  crepe,  as  they  were  called) 
covered  with  embroidery  of  the  ground  color,  but 

[  25°  ] 


WORK   OF   EASTERN  ASIA 


embroidery  in  varied  colors  has  never  been  a 
common  article  of  export  from  China,  before  our 
own  time  of  monstrous  prices  tor  any  delicate 
work  of  art ;  although  the  seventeenth-century 
Dutchmen  and  the  eighteenth-century  English- 
men did  bring  such  pieces  to  their  wives  at  home. 
The  invasion  of  China  by  European  and  other 
powers,  in  1900,  and  the  extraordinary  "punitive 
expeditions  "  by  which  a  helpless  people  suffered 
for  the  sins  of  others,  gave  a  great  opportunity  for 
plunder,  and  also  for  buying  cheap  the  property 
of  a  frightened  and  impoverished  people  ;  and  ac- 
cordingly great  sales  of  magnificent  Chinese  em- 
broideries took  place  in  Western  cities  in  1901  and 
1902.  In  these  great  collections  there  was  per- 
fectly well  seen  the  natural  and  obvious  decorative 
sense  of  the  native  Chinese.  Embroidery  was 
helped  by  many  other  appliances,  as  mentioned 
elsewhere  with  regard  to  the  Japanese  ;  even  gold 
foil  and  gilded  paper  were  glued  to  the  silk,  —  a 
simple  kind  of  applique  work  indeed  !  But  the 
strength  of  the  design,  of  huge  wall-hangings  and 
small  screens  and  garments  alike,  was  in  solid  and 
perfectly  understood  needle-work.  Japanese  em- 
broidery applied  to  those  curious  squares  of  silk 
which  are  used  to  cover  presents  or  ceremony  is 
generally  very  strongly  made,  the  threads  sufficiently 
stout  and  drawn  tight,  so  that  the  needle-work  itself 
will  last  as  long  as  the  silk  or  the  woollen  cloth 
upon  which  it  is  applied,  and  even  be  intact  after 

[  251  ] 


E  M  B  R  O  I  D  E  R  V 


the  stuff  has  worn  to  shreds.  The  Japanese  use 
emhroidery  less  in  costume,  though  it  is  so  used, 
usually  as  a  concomitant  and  heightening  of  splen- 
did woven  fabrics.     Thus  a  silk  robe  of  gorgeous 


Fig.  91.     Part  of  priest's  ceremonial  robe,  embroidered  in  silk, 
with  much  applique  work.     Japanese  work, 
eighteenth  century 


green  and  gold  background,  with  great  red  and 
white  woven  flowers  in  its  surface,  will  be  helped 
out  by  embroidery  in  gold  thread  and  in  white 
and  blue  rloss  around  that  part  of  the  skirt  which 
is  most  visible  and  seems  most  to  invite  further 

[  ] 


NEEDLE-POINT  LACE 


decoration  ;  and  this  added  embroidery  will  per- 
haps represent  or  suggest  some  definite  incident  or 
some  scene  in  the  daily  life  of  mankind.  Fig.  91 
is  part  of  a  priestly  robe,  the  dragon  being  about 
three  feet  long  ;  and  this  embroidery  is  as  solid  in 
all  its  parts  as  needle-work  may  be.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  long,  red  hair  of  a  famous  and  legendary 
poetess  is  given,  in  another  design,  absolutely  loose 
and  floating,  held  at  one  end  only  of  the  fine  and 
soft  silk  fibre. 

One  kind  of  needle-work  which  is  not  usually 
included  under  the  head  of  embroidery  must  be 
treated  in  connection  with  it.  Needle-point  lace 
is  that  which  either  in  its  whole  fabric  or  in  its 
decorative  parts  is  made  by  threads  which  are 
guided  and  put  in  place  by  the  needle  alone.  The 
fond  itself,  or  background  formed  of  even  meshes, 
is  sometimes  of  needle-work  as  well,  though  this 
may  be  of  bobbin  lace  (for  which  see  Chapter 
XII).  But  the  pattern  is  worked  with  the 
needle,  and  that  very  much  as  it  would  be  worked 
on  a  solid  material.  There  is  less  of  background  ; 
and  therefore  the  needle  has  to  partly  work  a  back- 
ground as  it  goes  along.  The  first  stitch  passes 
around  two  of  the  little  threads  which  form  the 
mesh,  and  this  and  its  succeeding  threads  gradually 
build  up  a  little  platform  of  greater  solidity  upon 
which  the  pattern  is  developed.  This  is  true  even 
where  the  pattern  is  extremely  fine  and  apparently 
transparent.     It  is  still  of  a  much  greater  solidity 

[  ^53  ] 


EMBROIDERY 


than  the  open  mesh  around,  and  even  where  the 
surface  of  the  leaf  is  generally  very  open  there  is 
a  rim  or  cordon  around  the  edge,  which  outlines  it 
firmly  and  holds  the  pattern  together,  even  if  not 
the  fabric  (see  Figs.  92  and  94). 

The  great  lace  industry  of  Europe  hardly  took 
shape  before  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


Fig.  92.     Needle-made  lace,  so-called  Brussels  point 


Previous  to  that  time  there  was  much  drawn  work, 
that  in  which  threads  were  pulled  out  of  the  piece 
of  linen,  and  the  little  openings  so  made  caught 
with  the  needle  and  hemstitched  as  it  were,  making 
little  lines  of  open  mesh  to  alternate  with  the 
more  solid  fabric  around.  Guipure  was  made 
also,  and  guipure  is  to  needle-point  lace  as  Russian 
wood-work  with  the  adze  and  hatchet  is  to  deli- 
cate carving  in  boxwood.  This  is  hardly  a  fair 
comparison,  as  guipure  may  be  beautiful  and  even 
refined  in  itself  (see  Fig.  93  ),  but  the  comparative 
coarseness  and  largeness  of  parts  in  the  one  is  to 

[  ^-54  ] 


T II E   EMBROIDERY   OF   BOBBIN  LACE 


the  delicacy  of  the  other  very  much  in  the  sug- 
gested proportion.  Even  here,  however,  it  be- 
hooves the  student  of  lace  to  speak  cautiously. 
Guipure,  then,  is  often  a  variety  of  bobbin  lace  (see 
Chapter  XII),  but  it  is  sometimes  needle  embroid- 
ery on  a  surface  as  of  linen,  which  is  then  entirely 


Fig.  93.    Guipure  a  Brides,  so-called  English  point 

cut  away  except  where  the  embroidery  remains 
so  that  the  pattern,  the  scroll,  the  zigzag,  or  the 
like  is  left  open  —  a  jour,  —  so  as  to  show  the 
fabric  of  a  gown  over  which  it  is  worn.  Little 
twisted  lines  of  thread  called  brides  are  carried 
across  from  branch  to  branch  of  the  scroll  to  hold 
everything  together.  These  are  put  in  by  the 
needle  after  the  ground  is  cut  away,  and  can  be 
put  in  in  greater  numbers  at  any  future  time. 

The  delicate  laces  which  we  know  as  of  Alen- 
con,  first  made  in  the  province  of  that  name  in 

[  *55  ] 


EMBROIDERY 


France ;  Valenciennes,  named  from  the  Flanders 
town  ;  and  later,  Brussels,  —  seem  all  to  have  had 
their  origin  in  the  heart  of  France,  in  those 
regions  of  the  Cevennes  Mountains  and  in 
Auvergne  where  the  wildness  of  the  country 
and  the  shortness  of  the  agricultural  season  leave 
much  leisure  for  other  industries.  It  is  certain 
that  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV  these  moun- 
tain regions  of  France  were  the  most  fertile  sources 
of  the  development  of  lace  work.  What  Colbert 
cherished  and  tried  to  preserve  for  France  was 
soon  caught  up  in  the  other  parts  of  Europe,  and 
spread  widely  through  the  north.  In  parts  of  the 
south  also  it  was  carefully  copied  ;  the  women  of 
the  lagoons  of  Venice  worked  lace  throughout  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  and  there 
was  developed  the  magnificent  Venetian  rose  point, 
which  is  of  all  point  lace  the  most  superb  in  effect 
(see  Fig.  94). 

The  position  of  lace  in  the  world  of  decorative 
art  is  peculiar  in  this,  that  it  is  almost  exclusively 
a  contrast  of  solids  and  piercings.  Applied  upon 
any  colored  surface,  a  piece  of  whitish  lace  would 
be  considered  chiefly  as  a  pattern  in  light  or  dark, 
much  as  an  inlay  is  considered.  The  eye  seizes 
the  yellowish-white  pattern,  or  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  that,  the  probable  darker  background  ;  the 
intelligence  is  gratified  by  the  contrast  ;  and  one 
of  the  most  attractive  appeals  to  the  artistic  sense 
is  thus  made  in  a  very  simple  way  and  in  a  way 

[  ] 


THE   DECORATIVE   EFFECT   OF  LACE 


moreover  which  allows  of  many  changes.  Take 
the  piece  of  white  lace,  Figure  85,  and  remove  it 
from  the  bluish-gray  background  upon  which  it 
lay  when  the  photograph  was  taken,  transfer  it  to 


Fig.  94.     Venice  Rose-point  lace 


a  piece  of  bright  yellow,  and  the  character  of  the 
design  is  changed  in  an  extraordinary  way.  Again, 
dye  the  piece  of  lace  a  little,  steep  it  in  tea  (a  very 
common  device),  and  then  lay  the  greenish-yellow 
web  upon  a  piece  or  dark  olive-green  silk  and  see 
how  different  again  will  be  the  result.     These  ex- 

VOL.  I           17  [    -  ^7  ] 


EMBROIDER  V 


periments  are  indeed  useful  when  one  has  to  study 
effects  in  decorative  art. 

There  is  still  another  consideration  as  to  this  view 
of  lace  as  one  of  the  decorative  arts.  The  surface 
of  the  lace  itself  is  so  modified  by  the  cordons  or 
thick  rounded  ridges  which  form  the  borders  of 
the  separate  leaves  and  flowers,  as  in  Fig.  94,  and 
this  in  many  kinds  of  lace  besides  the  exceedingly 
elaborate  Venice  rose  point ;  and  again  is  so  modi- 
fied by  the  irregularities  of  the  solid  web,  the  fill- 
ing, the  broader  surfaces  of  close-drawn,  almost 
opaque,  material  ;  or  again  by  the  constant  and 
rapid  passing  from  one  kind  of  mesh  to  another, 
as  in  Fig.  85  and  Fig.  92,  that  the  conditions  are 
as  if  the  substance  of  the  inlay  to  which  we  have 
compared  the  lace  were  continually  broken  up 
with  veinings  and  cloudings  —  with  irregularities 
of  surface,  bossings  and  sinkings  and  the  like  in  a 
way  not  often  used  in  the  art  of  inlaying,  properly 
so-called  (see  Chapter  XVII).  Then  we  have  the 
slight  relief  of  the  piece  of  lace  itself  from  the 
presumably  heavier  material  upon  which  it  lies ; 
and  with  this  comes  what  is  generally  foreign  to 
flat-pattern  decoration  of  all  kinds,  the  casting  of 
little  natural  shadows.  All  this  is  merely  a  way 
of  saying  that  lace  is  capable  of  wonderful  deco- 
rative effect  when  used  in  costume  and  in  such 
modifications  of  costume  as  are  seen  in  stately 
ecclesiastical  robes  of  office.  And  in  this  nothing 
has  been  said  as  to  the  effect  of  lace  when  stiffened 

[  ±5*  ] 


THE   PATTERNS   OE  LACE 


and  left,  as  in  the  ruffs  of  the  early  seventeenth 
century,  standing  stiff  and  sharp-pointed,  throwing, 
on  occasion,  its  really  beautiful  shadows  on  the 
surfaces  below  it.  Twentieth-century  people  have 
never  seen  that  effect  nor  will  they  see  it.  It  does 
not  seem,  however,  that  for  actual  decoration  this 
would  be  an  improvement  upon  the  simpler  ways 
which  we  know.  The  ruff  itself,  and  all  its  modi- 
fications and  its  results,  however  acceptable  as  a 
piece  of  fantastic  ceremonial,  forms  about  the  far- 
thest removal  from  noble  and  perfected  costume 
that  the  world  has  seen  (see  Chapter  XXIX). 

As  to  the  patterns  in  themselves,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  this  particular  manner  of  displaying 
patterns  is  one  of  the  most  successful  yet  discovered. 
Let  the  student  of  such  things  trace  or  copy  the 
outline  forms  of  lace,  its  scrolls  and  leaves,  its  solids 
and  piercings,  and  imagine  them  transferred  to  flat 
painting  or  to  mosaic  or  to  inlay  or  to  printed 
paper  or  cotton,  and  see  how  inferior  they  would 
be.  It  is  evident  that  the  patterns  which  have 
been  adopted  and  have  perfected  themselves  little 
by  little  in  the  lace  industry,  are  of  less  complex- 
ity, less  refinement,  less  purity  of  line,  less  abstract 
beauty,  than  those  in  other  departments  of  decora- 
tive design  ;  but  it  is  also  noticeable  that  they  are 
entirely  well  fitted  to  the  material,  that  more  re- 
fined patterns  would  not  be  practicable  in  bobbin 
or  in  needle-point  lace,  and  that  we  have  here 
an  instance  of  a  perfectly  traditional  art  growing 

[  259  ] 


E  M  B  R  O  I  D  E  R  Y 


among  the  people,  impossible  of  improvement  by 
the  artist  of  great  learning  and  originality,  a  thing 
perfect  and  complete  in  itself,  and  almost  the  only 
decorative  art  which  holds  its  own  in  Europe  in 
spite  of  untoward  conditions. 


[  260  ] 


Chapter  Fourteen 


BUILDING.1 

THE  methods  used  by  builders  are  of 
two  general  sorts,  first,  that  by  means 
of  massive  structure,  as  where  stones 
or  bricks  are  piled  one  upon  another  ; 
and  second,  that  of  skeleton  or  framed  2  structure, 
as  where  slender  uprights  and  slender  horizontals 
are  combined,  and  often  held  together  by  slender 
diagonal  pieces,  as  ties  or  stiffeners,  this  frame 3 
being  built  up  with  the  purpose  of  enclosing  or 
covering  it  afterward  within  or  without,  or  both. 
In  the  first  case  the  wall  is  the  solid  structure 

1  Building  :  The  practice  of  putting  together  material  to  produce  a 
structure,  especially  one  for  the  shelter  of  human  beings,  their  property  or 
pursuits,  or  of  domestic  animals  ;  also  for  purposes  of  military  defence, 
though  this  has  little  to  do  with  the  artistic  results  of  building. 

2  Framed :  Made  up  of  parts,  usually  long  and  slender,  which  are 
held  together  at  their  points  of  meeting.  A  structure  so  made  is  called  a 
frame. 

3  Frame:  In  building,  an  assemblage  of  stiff  pieces,  bars,  beams, 
posts  and  the  like,  as  of  wood  or  metal,  put  together  by  fitting  the  end  of 
one  to  the  side  of  another,  and  so  on.  In  joinery  (see  Chapter  XVI),  a 
door  or  a  window-sash  consists  of  a  frame,  the  openings  of  which  are  fit- 
ted with  panels  or  lights  of  glass.  In  common  trade-language,  a  frame  in 
woodwork  supposed  to  be  put  together  with  tenons  or  projecting  tongues, 
fitted  into  mortises,  or  holes  cut  to  receive  the  tenons. 

[  26l  ] 


BUILDING 


which  carries  the  floors,  if  any,  and  the  roof.  In 
the  other  case,  that  which  carries  the  floors  and 
roof  is  the  series  of  upright  posts,  which  may  or 
may  not  be  entirely  concealed  by  an  outside  sheath- 
ing. Thus  if  we  look  at  two  houses  in  an  Amer- 
ican village,  the  one  with  walls  built  of  brick  or  of 
rough  stone  shows  on  the  outside  the  main  prin- 
ciples of  its  wall-construction,  as  in  Fig.  97;  the 
other,  presenting  to  the  spectator  an  even  and 
uniform  surface  of  clapboards,  up  and  down  sid- 
ing, or  shingles,  is  of  unknown  internal  structure, 
no  part  of  its  actual  framework  being  visible,  as  in 
Figs.  102  and  103.  If,  instead  of  an  American 
village,  we  were  to  visit  a  town  in  northern 
France,  such  as  Lisieux,  or  one  in  western  Ger- 
many, such  as  Hildesheim,  or  one  in  England, 
such  as  Chester,  we  should  be  surprised  by  the 
appearance  of  many  decorative  houses  built  of 
admirable  framework  of  the  most  obvious  and 
workmanlike  construction,  and  with  that  frame- 
work all  exposed.  (See  Fig.  98.)  Roofs,  among 
peoples  of  European  race,  are  almost  always  built 
in  the  second  or  framed  manner:  but  the  roof- 
frames  must  always  be  sheathed,  for  the  more  per- 
fect protection  from  rain  and  snow.  The  terrace 
roofs  in  countries  where  stone  is  abundant  and 
wood  scarce,  as  in  central  Syria  and  certain  tropical 
and  sub-tropical  lands  where  rain  is  almost  un- 
known, and  where  the  flat  roof  is  valued  for  its 
coolness  as  a  sleeping-place  at  night,  and  where 

[  262  ] 


MASSIVE   AND   FRAMED  BUILDING 


also  wood  is  scarce,  are  sometimes  of  masonry. 
The  vaulting  with  which  many  rooms  or  great 
halls,  churches  and  the  like,  are  covered,  is  only  a 
ceiling  or  inner  roof,  except  in  those  buildings, 
rare  in  Europe,  in  which  the  same  shell  of  ma- 
sonry serves  for  closing  of  the  room  within  and  for 
shedding  the  rain-water  without.  One  or  two 
cupolas  like  those  of  Saint  Peter's  Church  at 
Rome,  the  Cathedral  at  Florence,  and  several 
smaller  ones,  are  of  solid  masonry  :  the  whole  of 
the  Cathedral  of  Sebenico  in  Dalmatia,  modern 
sea-coast  forts  in  which  the  bomb-proof  vaulting 
of  the  casemates  is  floored  over  with  flags,  and 
some  pieces  of  modern  engineering  in  steel-framed, 
brick-vaulted  city  buildings  are  roofed  in  that  solid 
way ;  which  is  not  uncommon  in  the  Orient,  even 
in  much  slighter  and  cheaper  structures. 

In  massive  construction  there  are  two  principal 
methods  of  work,  one  by  means  of  continuous 
walls,  with  or  without  openings  for  doors  and  win- 
dows, the  other  by  detached  uprights,  pillars  of 
some  kind,  carrying  horizontals,  and  this  either  by 
what  is  known  as  post  and  beam  construction,  or 
by  arches  thrown  from  pillar  to  pillar.  A  solid 
upright,  such  as  a  column  or  a  pillar  of  any  sort, 
carries  one  end  of  what  is  known  as  a  lintel  when  it 
is  spoken  of  as  a  piece  of  the  construction,  although 
the  architectural  term  may  be  different;  or  it  car- 
ries one  abutment  of  an  arch,  or  a  mass  serving  as 
abutment  to  two  or  more  arches  or  part  of  a  con- 

[  *6j  ] 


BUILDING 


tinuous  vault,  as  in  Fig.  101.  In  almost  all  cases, 
however,  the  building  consists  of  walls  with  win- 
dows in  them,  while  that  part  which  is  built  with 
detached  uprights  is  an  accessory  —  a  portico, 
or  an  arcade.  In  these  porticos  and  arcades  the 
openings  are  large,  the  solids  smaller ;  in  the  main 
structure  there  is  generally  much  unbroken  wall, 
with  openings  of  smaller  size. 

If,  in  either  of  these  two  ways  of  building,  the 
solid  structure  above  the  opening  is  carried  by  a 
lintel,  that  is,  by  a  piece  of  material  which  sup- 
ports the  weight  by  means  of  its  resistance  to  cross 
breakage,  this  piece  of  material  is  subject  to  a 
strain  against  which  neither  stone  nor  concrete  nor 
terra  cotta  is  relatively  strong  ;  and  it  follows  that 
the  width  of  openings  must  be  small.  In  the  case 
of  arches,  each  piece  of  material  has  to  resist  crush- 
ing force,  and  the  resistance  of  stones  and  bricks 
in  this  way  is  enormous,  so  that  the  span  of  arches 
is  indefinitely  great.  Fig.  95  shows  how  the 
pressures  of  the  load  above  are  distributed  through 
tbe  stones  or  bricks  of  an  arch.  There  is  nothing 
here  but  just  that  resistance  to  pressure  which 
stone  and  brick  are  especially  fitted  to  receive. 
There  is,  however,  one  other  consideration  ;  the 
arch  is  always  pushing  its  two  abutments  in  differ- 
ent directions,  and  therefore  these  abutments  must 
be  held  fast  in  one  of  several  ways,  as  by  having  a 
great  weight  of  material  in  the  wall  beyond  the 
abutment  to  right  and  to  left,  or  by  having  a  great 

[  264  ] 


Fig.  95.     Gateway  of  Roman  Imperial  date  at  Athens,  Greece. 
It  connected  the  Roman  "  City  of  Hadrian  "  with 
the  Greek  "City  of  Theseus" 


MASSIVE   AND   FRAMED  BUILDING 


weight  piled  upon  the  abutment,  which  will  thus 
be  kept  in  its  place  in  spite  of  the  thrust  of  the 
arch,  or  by  having  the  two  abutments  tied  to- 
gether by  an  iron  bar  or  the  like.  Each  of  these 
three  plans  is  in  use  in  architectural  work  of  the 
highest  importance  and  dignity.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  adopt  the  non-massive,  or  framed  con- 
struction, the  conditions  are  those  which  we  see 
in  the  United  States,  where  a  house  is  being  put 
up  in  a  country  village,  and  also  where  a  steel-cage 
structure  is  going  up  in  a  city.  The  frame  is  to 
be  covered  up  in  each  of  these  cases  —  hidden  so 
completely  by  wooden  sheathings  in  the  one  case 
and  by  masonry  in  the  other,  that  all  signs  of  the 
essential  structural  framework  disappear.  There 
are,  however,  buildings  which  are  treated  other- 
wise, as  has  been  said  above.  Fig.  102  shows  this 
American  sheathed  system;  Fig.  98  the  other. 

As  for  the  roofs,  they  may  be  entirely  or  nearly 
invisible  in  either  system  of  building,  not  only  in 
the  case  of  the  really  flat  roots  spoken  of  above, 
but  also  as  those  are  in  modern  towns,  almost  flat, 
because  covered  with  thin  sheets  of  metal  or  with 
tiles  laid  in  cement,  and  because  with  these  mate- 
rials a  very  little  slope  is  sufficient  to  allow  rain- 
water to  run  off.  Such  roofs  as  these  do  not  affect 
exterior  architecture  at  all ;  and  it  often  happens 
that  a  building  will  have  a  parapet  which  rises 
against  the  sky  and  completes  the  design  of 
the  wall.     On   the  other  hand,  there  are  very 

[  265  ] 


BUILDING 


many  buildings  of  which  the  roofs  are  very  im- 
portant external  features,  rising  high  above  the 
walls  in  steep  slopes  of  material  usually  darker 
than  that  of  the  walls  themselves,  and  with  sur- 
faces much  less  interrupted  by  window  openings. 
It  is  easy  to  see  how  much  difference  in  the  pos- 
sibilities of  external  architecture  there  exists  be- 
tween a  building  which  stands  like  an  almost 
cubical  box,  with  four  vertical  sides  and  one  hori- 
zontal surface  at  top,  and  a  building  which,  with 
vertical  sides,  is  closed  at  top  by  a  pyramid  or 
a  structure  which  resembles  a  pyramid  at  least  in 
having  steep,  sloping  sides.  In  the  one  case,  the 
walls  themselves  and  the  arrangement  of  the  open- 
ings in  them  form  much  the  most  important  part 
of  the  possible  architectural  design,  the  only  ex- 
ception to  this  rule  being  where  the  building  may 
be  much  broken  up  in  its  ground  plan  with  wings 
and  almost  separate  pavilions,  —  an  arrangement 
seldom  practicable,  not  only  because  of  the  want 
of  room  in  modern  cities,  but  also  because  of  the 
much  greater  cost  of  a  building  with  compara- 
tively so  much  exterior  wall,  involving  the  more 
elaborate  workmanship  of  such  wall,  and  many 
more  corners  to  build  carefully.  In  the  other  case, 
the  roof  is  an  important  part  of  the  possible  archi- 
tectural design,  and  may  easily  become  a  control- 
ling part.  It  was  one  of  Ruskin's  dicta  that  the 
roof  was  more  important  than  the  walls,  because 
it  embodied  the  very  purpose  of  the  house,  —  the 

[266] 


STEEP   AND   LOW  ROOFS 


keeping  of  the  rain  away  from  the  inmates.  Ar- 
chitectural designs  are,  however,  seldom  controlled 
by  sentimental  reasons  of  this  sort.  Construc- 
tional reasons  have  always  had  tar  more  weight 
with  the  designer  in  all  times  when  architecture 
has  been  in  a  healthy  and  vigorous  condition  ;  and 
the  traditions  of  Style  reinforce,  or,  as  Decadence 
begins,  replace  them.  The  roof  is  made  steep  to 
keep  the  water  from  penetrating  the  joints  be- 
tween slates,  tiles,  or  shingles,  and  the  roof  once 
built  with  a  high  and  visible  rise  above  the  walls, 
suggests  an  architectural  treatment  which  will  af- 
fect the  exterior  of  the  building  as  a  work  of  art. 
Accordingly  all  manner  of  devices  have  been  em- 
ployed. Sometimes  dormer  windows,  which  in 
their  absolute  utilitarian  way  need  not  be  large 
nor  extensive,  have  been  made  into  huge  structures 
of  wrought  stone,  seen  from  afar  as  partly  de- 
tached monuments,  and  throwing  upon  the  roof, 
shadows  of  surprising  power  and  effect  upon  the 
general  design.  Sometimes  parts  of  the  wall  are 
carried  up  into  the  roof,  as  if  in  an  enlargement 
of  the  dormer-window  idea  —  as  if  some  dormer 
windows  had  grown  too  large  for  their  places  and 
had  established  themselves  as  separate  pavilions 
(see  Fig.  96).  Sometimes  staircase  turrets  rise 
above  the  roof  and  dominate  even  the  dormer 
windows,  and  very  commonly  the  chimneys  are 
set  with  some  care  and  pains  in  the  outer  wall  of 
the  building,  and   built  up  with  real  enjovment 

[  267  ] 


BUILDING 


in  the  shafts  of  cut  stone,  or  of  brick  and  stone, 
which  shafts,  while  they  must  of  necessity  rise  to 
a  certain  height  relatively  to  the  ridge  ot  the  roof, 


Fig.  96.     Chateau  of  Josselin  in  Brittany.     Court-yard  front 


lest  the  fireplaces  smoke,  are  the  more  welcome 
to  the  architect  on  this  account.  Again,  in  some 
roofs,  the  dormer  windows  are  set  in  rows,  each 
row  of  windows  representing  a  story  of  the  many- 

[  268  ] 


EFFECT   OF   STEEP   ROOFS   ON  DESIGN 


storied  garret,  and  the  whole  sloping  surface  being 
treated  with  elaborate  fenestration  much  as  if  it 
were  a  vertical  wall.  Such  roofs  as  these  are  to 
be  found  in  Belgium,  among  the  Flemish  town- 


Fig.  97.     View  in  Nuremberg,  Bavaria  :  houses  of  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries 

halls  like  that  of  Louvain  and  that  of  Brussels  ;  and 
the  old  towns  of  Germany  are  rich  in  such  pictu- 
resque dispositions  (see  Fig.  97).  Of  the  others 
■ —  those  with  the  lofty  chimneys  and  high  stone 
dormers  —  the  French  chateaux  of  the  early  Re- 
naissance are  the  favorite  examples.  There  are 
chimneys  which  rise  thirty  feet  from  the  eaves,  and 

[  ±69  ] 


BUILDING 


dormer  windows  three  stories  high,  and  yet  the 
harmony  secured  between  these  and  the  general 
masses  of  the  building  is  seldom  found  deficient. 
Again,  the  roofs  are  broad  and  low,  with  slight 
pitch,  and  often  with  overhanging  eaves.  With 
such  roofs,  chimneys  are  low  and  dormers  hardly 
visible  if  they  exist  at  all. 

The  processes  of  building  are  multifarious  and  in- 
clude very  many  of  the  industries  treated  in  other 
chapters  of  this  manual.  Thus,  carving  is  used  in 
some  of  its  forms  for  all  the  stone  dressing;  model- 
ling is  used  in  the  making  of  all  the  brick  and  terra 
cotta,  plain  and  decorative  ;  woodwork  of  a  rougher 
kind  is  used  for  the  floors  and  roofs  and  the  occa- 
sional interposition  of  a  wooden  partition  or  screen, 
and  more  delicate  woodwork,  or  joinery  in  its  more 
usual  sense,  for  the  interior  finish  of  doors  and  door 
frames,  casings,  windows  and  their  appliances,  da- 
does and  complete  linings  of  rooms,  and  finally  for 
such  pieces  of  furniture  as  are  attached  to  the 
building.  Inlay  in  marble  and  in  wood,  painting 
and  plaster  work,  as  well  as  mosaic  in  glass  and  in 
ceramic  tiling,  are  all  used  for  those  decorative  ac- 
cessories, which  become  almost  necessities  in  build- 
ings of  any  elaboration.  The  only  industry  which 
is  peculiarly  that  of  the  builder  as  differing  from 
the  mechanic  in  other  departments  of  decorative 
work  is  the  putting  together  or  piling  up  of  his  ma- 
terials so  as  to  produce  a  house  which  will  stand  and 
prove  adequate  for  all  its  purposes.     This  industry 

[  *7°  ] 


Fig.  98.     Timber-built  house  at  Strasburg  on  the  Rhine, 

sixteenth  century 


P  R  O  C  E  S  S  E  S 


OF 


BUILDING 


is  the  subject  of  this  chapter,  and  we  have  now  to 
consider  what  the  essentials  of  construction  are. 

In  the  first  place,  what  is  said  in  the  early  para- 
graphs of  this  chapter  indicates  the  necessity  of  pro- 
viding against  certain  special  strains.  In  framed 
building,  each  square  made  of  two  uprights  and 
two  horizontals,  must  be  stiffened  by  the  use  of  diag- 
onal braces ;  except  where  in  modern  steel-cage 
building,  the  parts  are  strongly  riveted  together 
at  their  points  of  contact.  The  way  to  meet 
this  necessity  in  an  artistical  manner  is  shown  in 
Fig.  98,  where  braces  are  arranged  skilfully  and 
so  as  to  produce  a  really  interesting  design,  and 
are  then  richly  carved.  So,  in  massive  work,  the 
superincumbent  wall  must  not  be  allowed  to  bear 
too  heavily  upon  a  lintel,  or  the  lintel  will  break. 
If,  then,  an  opening,  as  of  a  door  or  window,  must 
needs  be  spanned  by  a  lintel,  it  will  be  essential  to 
support  that  lintel  either  by  a  pillar  in  the  middle 
or  by  two  pillars,  or  by  two  corbels  which  will 
diminish  its  bearing.  Or  another  device  may  be 
employed.  The  lintel  may  be  left  unsupported, 
but  the  greater  part  of  the  weight  may  be  taken 
from  it  by  means  of  a  discharging  arch.  Fig.  99 
shows  all  these  devices  at  once.  The  central  door- 
way has  a  middle  pillar  and  also  two  corbels  to  sup- 
port the  lintel ;  the  side  doorways  have  corbels  only  ; 
all  three  have  discharging  arches  which  take  all 
weight  from  the  lintel  except  that  of  the  sculptured 
slab  of  stone,  the  tympanum,  as  it  is  called.  The 

[271  ] 


BUILDING 


same  illustration  shows  the  small  free  arches  flank- 
ing the  central  porch,  and  three  large  arched  roofs 
in   the  porches   themselves.     The  triple  arcades 


F I**  » 


/  ■ 


Fig.  99.     Chartres  Cathedral  :  south  porch,  central  doorway. 
The  sculpture  is  of  about  1275 

above,  where  the  statues  are,  one  under  each  arch, 
are  not  of  arch  construction  at  all;  each  canopy  is 
composed  of  large  slabs  of  stone  which  meet  at  the 
point  of  the  arch  and  sustain  one  another  there, 

[  272  ] 


PROCESSES   SUGGESTING  THE  DESIGN 


supporting  the  little  cornice  and  the  pinnacles 
above.  Those  arcades  are,  therefore,  of  corbelled 
construction. 

Now,  it  is  evident  that  each  one  of  these  ways 
of  proceeding,  if  it  is  followed  in  the  whole  of  a 
building,  suggests  a  decorative  or,  as  we  commonly 
say,  an  architectural  treatment  of  its  own.  If  it 
happens  that  each  one  of  these  is  thought  to  be 
identified  with  a  particular  style  among  the  many 
historic  styles  of  architecture,  that  fact  ought  not 
to  influence  the  reader  too  far.  The  time  will 
come  when  the  designers  of  artistic  buildings  will 
realize  that  they  are  free —  that  the  loss  of  that 
natural  tradition  1  which  has  been  the  life  of  archi- 
tecture in  the  past,  however  serious  a  loss,  has 
brought  with  it  a  liberty  to  recompose  their  de- 
signs according  to  logical  principles  and  with  re- 
gard to  materials  and  ways  of  building  not  formerly 
in  use,  and  to  disregard  those  questions  which  have 
to  do  with  any  historical  style,  inasmuch  as  no 
such  style  will  have  been  recognized  by  the  de- 

1  Tradition :  in  fine  art,  is  of  two  kinds.  That  referred  to  in  the 
text  as  "  natural  "  tradition  is  the  handing  down  from  master  to  pupil, 
from  a  generation  of  builders  to  their  successors,  of  ways  of  building  and 
decorating  which  seem  matters  of  course,  and  which  change  insensibly. 
So  the  Grecian  Doric  style  is  divided  by  the  German  archaeologists  into 
the  Pre-Doric,  the  Rude  Archaic,  the  severe  Archaic,  the  Developed 
Doric,  the  Late  Doric,  and  the  Corrupt  Doric  of  the  Roman  period,  six- 
distinguishable  though  very  closely  similar  styles,  taking  a  thousand  years 
to  arise,  develop  themselves,  and  perish.  The  other  tradition  is  that  of 
the  schools,  largely  artificial,  entirely  modern  of  the  last  three  centuries, 
and  mainly  contained  in  books. 

vol.  i  —  i  8  f  nn  o  1 


BUILDING 


signer  while  at  work  upon  his  design.  So,  in  the 
case  of  the  columnar  portico,  the  Imperial  Roman 
way  of  building  this  is  shown  in  Fig.  100;  nor 
was  the  original  Grecian  way  —  the  plan  followed 
in  the  fifth  century  B.C.  —  radically  different. 
The  Italian  artists  of  the  Risorgimento  (that  which 
the  French  afterwards  called  the  Renaissance)  were 
eager  to  restore  Roman  forms  and  even  Roman 
principles  of  building,  but  it  was  a  slow  and  diffi- 
cult process,  and  for  many  a  year  they  were  not 
only  content  with,  but  were  even  delighted  with 
the  system  shown  in  Fig.  101.  It  will  be  seen 
how  different  are  the  schemes  in  these  two  cases : 
in  the  one,  the  structure  is  trabeated1  exclusively, 
the  lintels  have  so  little  weight  to  carry  that  they 
may  be  comparatively  long,  and  this  structure  of 
column  and  lintel  with  two  or  three  courses  of 
stone  above  it  is,  and  is  intended  to  be,  the  whole 
architectural  composition  ;  while  in  the  Florentine 
example,  not  only  is  the  wall  above  the  columns 
carried  on  semicircular  arches,  but  the  portico  it- 
sell,  the  broad  ambulatory  twenty  feet  wide,  is 
roofed  by  an  elaborate  piece  of  vaulting  in  solid 
mortar  masonry.  Here  are  two  broad,  open  por- 
ticos :  but  they  are  not  at  all  alike,  because  the 
building  ol  them  was  very  different  and  so  the 
designs  had  to  be  very  different.  In  the  one  case, 
trabeation  is  carried  out  without  a  thought  of  there 

1  Trabeated:  Built  with  beams;  consisting  of  beams ;  characterized 
by  the  use  of  beams  or  lintels  rather  than  arched  construction. 

[  274  ] 


Fig.  100.    Temple  of  purest  Roman  style  at  Vienne  (Isere), 
France  :  thought  to  be  of  the  first  century  a.  d. 


TRABEATE1)    AND    A  RCUATED  PORTICOS 


being  any  other  structure  possible;  and  this  al- 
though the  Romans  of  the  time  were  most  accom- 


Fig.  ioi.     Florence,  Loggia  of  S.  Paolo.     Designed  by  Brunel- 
leschi  about  1440.     The  rondels  in  the  spandrils 
by  Luca  or  Andrea  della  Robbia 

plished  builders  of  massive  and  enduring  vaults. 
In  the  other  case,  although  the  structure  is  entirely 
arcuated,  it  puts  on  something  of  a  pseudo-classical 

[  275  ] 


BUILDING 


air  by  dint  of  having  separate  round  columns  to 
carry  the  points  of  weight  and  thrust,  instead  of 
the  built-up  and  in  outline  more  complex  piers 
which  would  have  been  characteristic  of  earlier 
structures  of  medieval  design.  One  comment  is 
to  be  passed  upon  this  Florentine  building,  namely, 
upon  the  frank  adoption  of  what  Northern  builders 
would  have  considered  a  monstrous  solecism.  This 
is  the  elaborate  system  of  ties  which  keeps  this 
piece  of  vaulting  from  tearing  itself  to  pieces  in  a 
few  hours  or  days.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
constructive  architecture  this  is  indeed  a  fault  so 
serious  that  at  least  one  writer  whose  own  designs 
and  whose  critical  studies  are  founded  upon  the 
practical  and  in  a  sense  scientific  work  of  the 
French  Middle  Ages,  criticises  these  Italian  build- 
ings as  unworthy  of  serious  consideration  as  archi- 
tecture. We  know  perfectly  well  what  Eugene 
Viollet-le-Duc  means  by  this,  and  we  sympathize 
with  him  to  a  certain  extent.  The  fact  that  this 
arcade  is  lovely  in  its  proportions,  in  its  materials, 
in  the  sculpture  which  is  added  to  it,  and  in  its 
general  aspect  as  we  consider  it  in  connection  with 
the  square  upon  which  it  fronts  and  the  town  of 
which  it  forms  a  part  —  that  fact  is  to  be  consid- 
ered on  the  other  hand  as  modifying  what  must 
be  after  all  a  tentative  kind  of  criticism,  a  criti- 
cism which  recognizes  on  the  one  hand  its  con- 
structional shortcomings,  and  on  the  other  hand 
its  artistic  beauty. 

[  ^-76  ] 


LOGICAL   CONSISTENCY,   OLD   AND  NEW 


Buildings  which  are  almost  wholly  free  from 
constructive  errors  or  shortcomings  are  to  be 
found  in  Egypt  according  to  the  style  perpetuated 
there  through  five  thousand  years  ;  in  Greece  and 
the  Grecian  colonies  of  the  Mediterranean,  repre- 
senting an  epoch  about  six  centuries  long  ;  in  the 
Byzantine  or  Eastern  Roman  world,  an  architect- 
ure which,  beginning  with  the  fifth  century  a.  d., 
has  not  entirely  perished  even  to-day  ;  and  in 
western  Europe  from  the  time  when  the  scattered 
and  impoverished  communities  of  the  Middle 
Ages  grew  strong  enough  and  intelligent  enough 
to  build  wisely,  that  is  to  say,  from  about  i  i  50 
a.  d.,  until  the  invasion  of  the  classical  revival 
coming  from  Italy.  These  have  been  the  great 
epochs  of  consistent  and  intelligent  design  based 
upon  building,  but  it  need  hardly  be  said  that  there 
have  been  many  outlying  provinces  of  the  king- 
dom of  architecture  which  would  have  to  be 
considered  separately  were  this  a  historical  investi- 
gation which  we  are  conducting.  Thus,  the  sev- 
enteenth century  churches  of  Paris,  S.  Roch  and 
the  chapel  of  the  Sorbonne,  are,  in  their  main 
masses,  designed  as  completely  in  accordance  with 
the  constructional  means  employed  as  any  French 
building  of  the  thirteenth  century  a.  d.  or  any 
Greek  building  of  the  fourth  century  b.  c.  ;  and 
yet  these  churches  were  built  in  the  very  middle 
of  the  later  neoclassic  epoch,  which  it  has  been 
the  fashion  to  decry  as  a  decadent  and  altogether 

[  277  ] 


BUILDING 


unworthy  time  for  architecture,  —  a  theory  which 
depends  upon  the  abandonment,  by  those  late 
builders,  of  strictly  classical  details.  So  Roman 
building  under  the  great  empire  was  not  always 
disfigured  by  the  application  of  a  pseudo-Greek  ve- 
neer to  buildings  of  a  totally  different  constructive 
organization.  There  are  many  Roman  buildings 
which  are  extremely  consistent  in  their  design ; 
and  among  them  some  of  those  which  recent  re- 
search has  found  in  an  almost  uninjured  condi- 
tion in  lands  that  were  prosperous  when  the 
empire  was  great,  but  which  have  decayed  to 
deserts  under  Moslem  dominion,  —  lands  in  Syria 
and  in  North  Africa.  In  like  manner,  the  per- 
fectly simple,  obvious,  and  straightforward  method 
of  building  which  grew  up  in  the  United  States 
under  the  combined  influence  ol  the  abundant 
forests  of  timber  trees  and  of  invention  leading  to 
methods  of  working  wood  and  iron — cutting  and 
planing  studs,  joists,  and  boards,  and  shaping  nails 
and  spikes  cheaply  and  in  vast  quantities  —  a 
structure  of  simple  framework,  sheathed  simply 
by  means  of  weather  boarding,  is  as  respectable  as 
any  architecture  which  the  world  has  seen.  It  is 
as  worthy  of  respect,  but  not  as  worthy  of  our 
careful  study,  because  neither  its  material  nor  the 
instinctive  habits  of  the  race  have  led  to  verv  dec- 

J 

orative  results.  There  were  indeed  in  this  system 
of  sheathed  framework,  certain  possibilities  which 
were  not  discovered  until,  in  the  last  quarter  of 

[  278  ] 


LOGICAL  CONSISTENCY,  OLD 


AND  NEW 


the  nineteenth  century,  certain  highly  trained 
architectural  artists  gave  their  thoughts  to  it. 
Then  we  had  built  at  low  cost  in  our  villages 


Fig.  i 02.     Frame  house,  covered  with  shingles,  at  Orange,  New 
Jersey,  designed  by  Babb,  Cook  &  Willard,  about  1887 


houses  as  good  as  those  shown  in  Figs.  102  and 
103. 

There  is,  however,  one  very  important  consider- 
ation. Architecture  in  the  nineteenth  century 
was  throughout  European  lands,  in  all  parts  of 
the  world,  in  a  state  never  before  seen  in  any 
historical  epoch.  At  no  previous  time  was  it  a 
matter  of  indifference  and  a  matter  of  private 
choice  what  style  of  design  would  be  adopted  by 
the  owner  or  the  architect  of  a  given  building. 

[  V9  ] 


BUILDING 


In  every  epoch,  from  5000  b.  c.  in  the  valley  of 
the  Euphrates  and  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  to  1800 
a.  d.   in  England,    France,  Germany,   Italy  and 


Fig.  103.     Frame  house  covered  with  shingles,  at  Chestnut 
Hill,  Massachusetts.     Designed  by  Andrews, 
Jaques  &  Rantoul,  about  1886 

throughout  European  lands  and  their  colonies,  a 
building,  if  undertaken  would  be,  of  necessity,  con- 
ceived and  carried  out  according  to  a  recognized 
system  of  building  and  design.  If,  then,  the 
awakening  to  artistic  matters  of  the  peoples  of 
Europe  about  1850  a.  d.  allowed   them  to  per- 

[  280  ] 


THE   LOSS   OF  TRADITION 


ceive  the  fact  that  then  no  such  uniformity 
of  practice  existed,  and  that  architects  felt  them- 
selves at  liberty  to  design  in  any  historical  style 
whatever,  and  if  this  condition  of  things  has 
prevailed  ever  since,  in  spite  of  the  universally 
admitted  fict  that  it  is  unfortunate,  the  reasons  for 
this  state  of  things  must  be  rather  numerous,  varied, 
and  far  to  seek.  It  is  impossible  to  explain  the 
full  causes  of  this  or  the  different  opinions  which 
prevail  concerning  those  causes,  without  writing  a 
volume  on  that  subject  alone.  But  it  will  not  be 
disputed  that  one  cause  is  the  disappearance  of  bind- 
ing traditions  natural  to  an  epoch  which  makes 
scientific  investigation  its  first  and  most  fruitful  sub- 
ject of  thought,  and  that  another  cause  is  the  nearly 
related  one  that  the  best  intellect  of  the  day  is  not 
giving  thought  to  artistic  expression.  The  reader 
will  observe  that  this  reflects  in  no  way  upon  the 
intelligence  and  ability  of  those  individuals  who 
are  devoting  themselves  to  artistic  modes  of 
thought.  The  weight  of  intellect  is  the  other 
way  ;  and  the  chosen  modes  of  expression  of  the 
nineteenth  century  in  the  world  of  imagination 
and  fancy,  representation  and  record,  were  first 
verse,  then  music,  and,  in  that  which  appeals  to 
the  eye,  painting  in  some  one  of  its  many  forms, 
together  with  drawing  carried  to  a  singular  pitch 
of  ingenuity  and  expressiveness.  So  that  the  ar- 
chitect who  may  choose  to  put  such  thought  into 
his  work  as  would  have  been  of  necessity  put  into 

[281] 


BUILDING 


the  work  of  his  predecessor  of  two  or  three  cen- 
turies back,  if  he  have  the  gifts  enabling  him 
to  bring  imagination  and  power  of  abstract  design 
to  his  task  as  well  as  ordinary  knowledge  of  build- 
ing, will  find  that  his  embodied  design  is  accom- 
panied by  buildings  which  have  been  erected 
without  design  at  all,  and  by  other  buildings  put  up 
either  as  professed  copies  of  what  has  been  done  in 
the  past  or  copies  of  the  spirit  and  details  of  those 
buildings  somewhat  rearranged  owing  to  abso- 
lutely novel  necessities.  Under  these  conditions  it 
would  be  a  matter  of  surprise  if  anything  very  im- 
portant in  the  way  of  architecture  were  produced. 

Let  us  consider,  for  instance,  the  steel-frame  struc- 
ture with  which  American  cities  have  become 
familiar  since  1880.  It  has  the  singular  advan- 
tage—  this  method  of  construction  —  that  you 
can  build  the  frame  of  a  twenty-story  building  in 
a  very  few  weeks,  and  can  then  proceed  to  put  on 
the  outside  case  and  the  inside  finish  anywhere,  at 
top  as  well  as  at  bottom,  or  in  a  half  a  dozen  parts 
of  the  building  at  once.  The  structure  is  a  frame- 
work of  relatively  slender  steel  uprights  and  hori- 
zontals held  together  in  the  firmest  possible  way 
so  as  to  do  away  with  the  necessity  of  elaborate 
diagonal  bracing;  but  this  structure  is  by  its  very 
nature  prohibited  from  taking  on  the  aspect  of  a 
decorative  system  of  building,  that  is  to  say  of  an 
architecture.  It  must  not  be  exposed  so  as  to  be 
visible  either  within  or  without,  and  this  because 

[  282  ] 


ATTEMPTS   TO   MEET   NEW  CONDITIONS 


of  the  great  prevalence  of  serious  conflagrations  in 
American  cities,  which  have  made  it  the  primary 
need  of  each  municipality  to  prohibit  the  exposure 
of  this  steel  frame  and  to  require  its  jacketing  by 
mason-work  many  inches  in  thickness.  Two  or 
three  American  architects  have  struggled  manfully 
with  the  problem.  They  have  tried,  and  not 
wholly  in  vain,  to  devise  a  system  of  exterior  or- 
namentation which  might  allow  of  the  covering- 
in  of  all  the  parts  of  this  cage  with  a  suitably 
suggestive  and  not  disagreeable  investiture.  The 
vast  majority  of  the  architects  have  been  satisfied, 
so  far,  however,  with  covering  up  their  light 
metal  work  by  what  seem  to  be  solid  walls  of 
masonry,  though  thev  are  in  reality  mere  veneers, 
and  of  the  giving  to  a  twenty-story,  tower-like 
building  three  hundred  feet  high  the  appearance 
of  an  extremely  massive  fortress  tower,  although 
its  walls  in  reality  are  thinner  than  the  masonry 
walls  of  the  five-story  building  next  door.  It  is 
not  meant  that  any  serious  harm  is  done  to  modern 
architecture  by  this  pretence;  this  is  not  a  cause, 
but  a  symptom  of  our  ailment.  Modern  city 
architecture  is  neither  better  nor  worse  for  the 
appearance  of  these  lofty  structures;  and  all  that 
one  regrets  in  their  appearance  is  that  in  this  case 
again  the  opportunity  has  been  left  unimproved 
of  designing  a  new  class  of  buildings  as  they 
should  have  been  designed. 


[  283  ] 


Chapter  Fifteen 


PLASTERING1 

IN  the  protest  which,  during  the  second  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  was  made  against 
the  slovenly  habit  of  using  one  material  to 
imitate  another  and  more  valuable  or  more 
admired  substance,  the  real  merit  of  plaster  and 
its  like  came  to  be  overlooked.  A  rough  wall 
can  be  faced  with  weather-proof  stucco  outside, 
and  within  with  fine  mortar  (that  which  is  ordi- 
narily called  plastering),  with  pure  gypsum  or  plas- 
ter of  Paris,  or  with  one  of  several  forms  of  fine 
cement.  Highly  decorative  and  perfectly  artistic 
results  can  be  attained  in  this  way;  because  the 
surface  of  the  plastic  material  lends  itself  to  all 
kinds  of  relief  sculpture  and  incision.     In  good 

Plastering  :  the  application  of  any  soft  material  which  hardens  and 
retains  its  tenacity  and  its  form  under  ordinary  circumstances.  Plaster  of 
Paris  (gypsum),  cement  (a  powder  obtained  from  burning  certain  rocks, 
and  which  combines  with  water  much  as  gypsum  does)  are  the  chief  ma- 
terials used  when  plastering  is  made  an  accessory  of  building.  These 
may  be  used  pure  or  mixed  with  sand,  producing  what  is  called  mortar; 
some  of  these  mortars  are  used  for  making  what  is  called  artificial  stone  as 
well  as  concrete  of  the  usual  sort.  As  the  subject  is  treated  in  this 
chapter  it  has  to  do  with  a  kind  of  modelling  in  one  of  these  soft  but  soon 
hardening  materials. 

[  ^4  ] 


THE 


COATING 


OF  GREEK 


TEM PLES 


times  of  architectural  art,  when  straightforward 
methods  of  building  were  matters  of  course,  these 
plastic  materials  were  accepted  as  a  covering  and 
nothing  else,  and  were  allowed  their  full  share  in 
the  work.  Simple  effects,  with  incised  lines  and 
varying  colors,  were  easy  to  secure  for  the  humble 
house;  the  splendors  of  plastic  art  were  equally 
accessible  for  other  occasions.  When  Greek  tem- 
ples were  built  of  coarse-grained  stone,  as  at  Paes- 
tum,  at  Girgenti,  and  at  Olympia,  the  columns  and 
architraves  were  covered  with  stucco,  in  which 
material  indeed  the  most  delicate  architectural 
forms  received  their  final  modelling.  This  plas- 
tering was  made  necessary  by  the  unfitness  of  the 
stone  to  receive  its  polychromatic  painting.  But 
this  use  of  a  soft  wall-covering  which  would  harden 
was  not  a  thing  to  neglect ;  artistic  possibilities 
were  visible  therein.  Columns  could  be  built  as 
cylinders  of  common  brickwork,  and  then  coated 
with  hard  plaster,  two  inches  or  more  thick, 
allowing  of  all  the  needed  liutings  and  reedings,  as 
in  the  Temple  of  Isis  at  Pompeii,  and  in  many  a 
house  there,  and  in  two  or  three  in  the  small 
cleared  space  at  Herculaneum.  When,  instead  of 
building  out  in  stucco  for  the  architectural  details 
themselves,  there  was  only  a  smooth  masonry 
vault  to  be  lined  and  made  splendid,  stucco  plas- 
tering was  at  its  best.  The  great  vaults  of  the 
thermaj  and  basilicas  were  panelled  in  that  mate- 
rial, perfunctory  octagons  alternating  with  smaller 

[  285  ] 


P L  A  S T E  RING 


squares ;  but  the  vault  of  the  bath  of  Stabii  at 
Pompeii  is  exquisitely  adorned  with  interlacing 
guilloches  enclosing  relief  groups  of  figures  and 
animals  ;  halls  of  that  congeries  of  Imperial  build- 
ings on  the  Palatine  are  panelled  so  as  to  enclose 
really  lovely  bas-reliefs  of  cupids  ;  a  huge  room  of 


Fig.  104.     Rome  :  stuccoes  from  a  vaulted  room  near  the 
Tiber,  work  of  the  first  century  a.  d. 

the  villa  of  Hadrian  at  Tivoli  is  glorified  on  a  still 
more  extensive  scale  by  the  same  means.  In  the 
Farnesina  Garden  on  Tiber-side  is  an  antique  hall  of 
which  the  whole  wall  surface  has  been  covered  with 
such  relief  in  the  most  elaborate  and  most  refined 
designs  of  figure  subject  (see  Fig.  104).  This  is 
really  sculpture  of  a  very  high  order,  the  forms, 
the  draperies,  and  even  the  human  faces  modelled 
as  finely  as  if  each  one  were  a  medallion  in  wax  ; 
and,  in  the  so-called  tomb  of  the  Valerii,  outside 

[  286  ] 


ROMAN   STUCCO  RELIEFS 


the  walls,  on  the  Via  Latina,  the  enclosing  pattern 
of  circles  and  octagons  and  squares  is  as  carefully 
planned  and  as  delicately  worked  as  the  bas-reliefs 
themselves,  which  are  of  such  slight  and  graceful 


Fig.  105.     Campagna  of  Rome.     Stuccoes  from  a  tomb  on 
the  Via  Latina.     Work  of  the  first  century  a.  d. 


figure  subject  as  the  Pompeian  paintings  of  danc- 
ing maidens  (see  Fig.  105).  These  and  other 
pieces  previously  known  had  excited  in  former 
times  less  attention  than  they  deserved  ;  and  all 
have  helped  us  now  to  rewrite  the  history  of 
Roman  art  as  it  is  now  being  very  generally 
rewritten. 

[  287  ] 


PLASTERING 


Even  in  the  far  later  day  and  far  less  thorough- 
going work  of  the  Tudor  monarchs,  in  England 
under  Elizabeth  and  James  I,  the  plastered  ceil- 
ings, introduced  perhaps  from  Italy,  however  un- 


Fig.  1 06.     Hatfield  House.     Long  gallery  ;  plaster  ceiling 
of  about  1 610 


lucky  in  themselves  as  replacing  the  manly  old 
system  of  beams  and  girders  which  formed  the 
underside  of  the  real  floor,  were  yet  carefully  de- 
signed, and  that  with  a  certain  daring  firmness  as 
if  the  possibilities  of  the  new  material  had  been 

[  288  ] 


POSSIBILITIES   IN  DECORATION 


grasped  at  the  first  beginning  of  its  use.  A 
ceiling  such  as  some  of  those  in  the  great 
country  palace  of  Hatfield  is  worthy  to  rank  with 
purely  architectural  decoration  anywhere  (see  Fig. 
106). 

It  is  still  with  the  Imperial  Romans,  however, 
that  our  fancies  remain  when  we  think  of  what 
is  possible  to  plaster  and  stucco.  Among  them 
the  lower  part  of  a  temple  wall  might  be  sheathed 
with  marble  slabs,  because  there  the  impact  of 
really  heavy  bodies  was  to  be  feared,  and  blows 
from  sharp  instruments  could  not  be  avoided  in  the 
course  of  succeeding  years.  Moreover,  a  marble 
slab  could  be  rather  easily  detached  and  replaced  if 
broken.  But  above  the  six-foot  or  ten-foot  line  the 
Avail  was  coated  with  stucco  blocked  off  in  imita- 
tion of  courses  of  stone.  This  stucco,  though  per- 
haps always  left  white  in  the  public  buildings  of  the 
Imperial  city,  was  frequently  charged  with  color 
in  residences,  as  we  know  from  the  discoveries  in 
Pompeii.  A  whole  system  of  wall  decoration  is 
traceable  there,  as  pointed  out  in  Mail's  Pompeian 
book,  in  the  simple  process  of  coloring  each 
block  or  apparent  block  of  the  ostensible  stone 
wall  with  a  separate  hue,  and  then  alternating 
these  raised  surfaces  of  green,  violet,  and  red  in 
such  play  of  light  and  dark,  warm  and  cool,  as  the 
artist  might  imagine.  Vitruvius  tells  us  that  this 
plastering  was,  or  at  least,  in  his  opinion  as  a 
builder,  should  be,  put  on  with  extreme  care  and 

VOL.  1—I9  [   2^9  ] 


PLASTERING 


with  quite  remarkable  precautions  of  time  passed 
and  patience  used.  Three  coats,  four  coats  of  plas- 
ter with  sand,  three  coats  more  made  with  marble 
dust  (unlucky  that  he  did  not  tell  us  how  thick 
these  coats  were,  and  exactly  how  mixed  !)  would 
produce,  he  tells  us,  a  plaster  so  attractive  that  old 
pieces  of  it  were  cut  from  ruinous  walls  and  then 
used  for  table  tops.  He  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that 
this  was  not  at  all  mere  saving,  but  because  the 
polish  of  the  old  plaster  was  so  beautiful. 

Nothing  like  that  comes  in  our  modern  way  ; 
but  the  finish  by  means  of  certain  patent  cements 
of  interiors  of  buildings  meant  to  be  wholly  incom- 
bustible, fireproof,  has  given  the  observers  who 
have  watched  the  work  done  since  1885  a  hope 
that  with  the  coming  of  a  more  sincere  demand 
for  artistic  architecture  this  plastic  substance  may 
well  be  utilized  in  the  Roman  way.  The  cement 
out  of  which  a  mere  surbase  of  a  few  parallel 
mouldings  is  "  stuck  "  1  would  f  urnish  equally  well 
the  material  for  elaborate  patterns  stamped  or 
cast  in  moulds  and  fixed  to  the  walls  in  a  way 
altogether  permanent. 

In  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  plaster- 
ing is  so  much  identified  with  light  substructure 

1  Stick  (v.  t.  )  :  to  give  shape  to,  as  a  moulding,  by  running  a  cutter, 
a  scraper,  or  the  like,  in  one  direction,  so  as  to  produce  a  group  of  forms 
having  everywhere  the  same  transverse  section.  This  is  applied  to  the 
making  of  wooden  mouldings  by  a  machine  like  a  planing  mill  ;  and  also 
to  the  making  of  soft  plaster  mouldings  with  a  form  ;  though  this  last 
process  is  also  called  running, 

[  29°  ] 


POSSIBILITIES   IN  SCULPTURE 


of  laths  ;  and  in  America  especially,  the  whole  in- 
terior even  of  city  houses  is  so  generally  divided 
up  with  wood-framed  floors  and  partitions,  that 
we  think  of  all  forms  and  all  varieties  of  this  ap- 
pliance as  hopelessly  trivial  and  temporary.  This 
impression  can  be  done  away  with  by  the  general 
adoption  of  the  custom  of  applying  the  inner 
plastering,  as  the  external  stucco  has  always  been 
applied,  to  solid  masonry,  ot  which  it  immediately 
forms  a  seemingly  unremovable  part.  Some  of  our 
newly  built,  quasi-fireproof  structures  have  been 
finished  within  by  dadoes  and  panelling  run  in 
hard  cement,  and  forming  a  part  of  the  plastered 
facing  of  the  brick  walls.  Here  is  a  beginning  of 
what  may  be  an  excellent  method  of  decoration. 
It  leads  directly  to  the  noble  work  of  the  vault  in 
the  Farnesina  Garden  as  above  described;  but  even 
before  that  advanced  point  of  fine  art  is  reached, 
admirable  borders  and  panel-fillings  may  be  made 
in  low  and  in  high  relief — if  some  sculptor  will 
give  his  attention  to  the  designing  of  "  arabesques." 
Indeed  it  is  painter's  work  as  well !  It  is  study  in 
delicate  light  and  shade  that  is  wanted — light  and 
shade  distributed  over  flat  surfaces;  and  where  is 
the  painter  that  does  not  work  in  monochrome  at 
times  ? 

It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  plaster  is  the  ma- 
terial in  which  is  shown,  at  the  annual  salons  of 
Paris  and  other  great  public  exhibitions,  all  the 
more  important  works  of  modern  sculpture.  The 

[  291  ] 


P  L  A  S  T  E  R I N  G 


medals  are  given,  the  pieces  are  bought  of 
their  creators,  the  reputations  are  made,  with 
plaster  only  for  the  incorporation  of  the  sculptor's 
thought.  These  plaster  figures  are  cast  from  the 
wet  clay  ;  it  is  a  mere  transferring  of  the  forms 
from  a  plastic  material  which  cracks  and  crumbles 
as  it  dries  to  one  which  is  permanent.  And  in 
this  connection  we  must  recall  the  bas-reliefs  of 
the  Italian  Renaissance — the  pieces  in  gesso  duro) 
saints  and  Madonnas  —  which  adorn  our  cabi- 
nets. There  are  some  of  these  works  of  art  which 
exist  also  in  more  precious  material;  but  the 
greater  number  are  not  known  to  the  modern 
world  of  dealers  and  buyers  otherwise  than  as 
reliefs  of  plaster,  framed  in  wood,  with  orna- 
mental carving  simulated  in  plaster  or  in  another 
plastic  composition,  and  painted  the  color  of  dark 
bronze.  There  is  something  like  this  seen  in  those 
chests  and  coffers  of  the  seventeenth  century  whose 
wooden  tops  and  sides  are  covered  thick  with 
what  seem  carvings,  painted  according  to  some 
chromatic  scheme.  They  are  really  made  as  many 
of  our  gilded  picture-frames  are  made,  the  orna- 
ment in  some  hard  variety  of  plaster  ;  and  even 
a  metal  rim  may  be  used  here  or  there. 

The  subject  of  plastering  includes  exterior  deco- 
ration of  two  kinds,  although  one  of  these  is 
strictly  a  branch  of  painting  and  noted  further  in 
Chapters  V  and  XX,  and  the  other  is  a  variety  of 

[  292  ] 


Fig.   107.     Florence,  Palazzo  del  Conte  Boutourlin.  Sixteenth- 
century  Painting  restored 


EXTERIOR   DECORATION   IN  COLOR 


engraving,  for  which  see  Chapter  XIX.  Fig.  107 
gives  a  Florentine  house-front.  The  building,  of 
the  sixteenth  century  and  ascribed  to  several  differ- 
ent architects  of  the  greatest  period  of  the  perfected 
Renaissance,  has  been  renewed  as  to  its  exterior 
face  on  more  occasions  than  one  ;  and  yet  the 
present  system  of  painting  and  even  the  details  of 
the  design  are  sufficiently  authentic  as  faithful  re- 
productions of  early  work.  Similar  fronts  from 
Florence  itself,  and  earlier  examples  from  Vicenza 
would  be  easy  to  give;  and  again  the  possessors  of 
photographs  made  long  ago  in  Venice,  when  Ponti 
first  began  to  apply  the  new  invention  to  archi- 
tecture, will  find  among  their  treasures  Venetian 
painted  fronts  as  well.  Some  of  the  Venice  fronts 
were  painted  with  fully  realized  legendary  or  met- 
aphorical subject ;  but  those  great  compositions 
have  perished,  — one  building  alone  retaining  traces 
of  its  decoration  down  to  i860.  The  art  has  been 
revived  in  Germany  in  very  recent  times ;  nor 
would  it  be  hard  to  find  in  other  European  lands 
some  traces  of  this  attempted  restoration  of  what 
was  once  a  beautiful  device  for  the  adornment  of 
an  otherwise  plain  exterior.  The  question  of  com- 
bining painting  with  a  stucco  exterior  in  such  a 
way  that  it  will  bear  the  exposure  of  the  years  of 
storm  and  changing  temperature  is  not,  then,  as 
difficult  as  it  would  appear,  for  the  climate  of  Ber- 
lin is  harsh  enough  and  damp  enough  to  try  the 
strength  of  any  exterior  coating  of  whatever  sort. 

[  293  ] 


PLASTERING 


Florence,  however,  remains  the  best  town  for  the 
study  of  these  external  effects.  By  this  time  the 
Palazzo  Borgo-Antellesi  must  have  been  restored, 
and  its  elaborate  paintings  refreshed.  The  Pal- 
azzo Guadagni  is  as  spick  and  span  as  it  was  in  the 
days  of  Cronaca.  The  Villa  Palmieri,  in  the  close 
neighborhood  of  the  city,  is  a  good  instance  of  sim- 
ilar work  on  a  very  large  scale,  done  as  if  with  the 
purpose  of  telling  against  the  dark  foliage  and 
the  broken  hillside  scenery  ;  and  within  the  walls 
the  old  Palazzo  Quaratesi  has  been  put  into  shape 
and  stripped  of  its  modernizations  as  a  hotel,  show- 
ing now  a  perfect  example  of  the  mural  painting 
in  decorative  patterns  as  it  was  understood  by  the 
men  of  the  Risorgimento. 

The  art  of  sgraffito 1  decoration  is  used  in  the 
adornment  of  small  objects  as  well  as  in  archi- 
tectural compositions.  It  is,  however,  in  the 
house  fronts  of  central  Italy  in  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries  that  its  most  important  develop- 
ments have  been  reached.  The  cartoons  for  these 
decorations  were  sometimes  furnished  by  artists  of 
high  rank  ;  and  at  a  time  when  drawing  of  the 
human  figure  and  of  all  decorative  detail  was 
familiar  to  very  many  workmen  other  than  the 
artists  of  exceptional  renown,  such  cartoons  were 

1  Sgraffito :  ornamentation  by  means  of  incised  lines  scratched  or  cut 
in  damp  plaster.  The  term  is  an  accepted  noun  in  Italian,  and  it  is  not 
necessary  for  correct  usage  to  employ  the  participle  of  the  verb  sgraffiari, 
as  is  sometimes  done  in  English  writing. 

[  294  ] 


S  G  R  A  F  ¥  I T  O   I)  E  CORA  T I  O  N 


pieces.  The  one  given,  Fig.  108,  is  from  the 
old  Palazzo  Corsi  near  San  Gaetano  in  Florence. 

[  295  ] 


PLASTERING 


When  considered  as  a  polychromatic  decoration, 
or  even  as  a  decoration  in  monochrome  or  nearly 
so,  this  effect  is  brought  about  by  laying  a  coat 
of  light  plaster  over  a  dark  coat,  or  the  reverse, 
and  scratching  through  the  outer  so  as  to  expose 
the  inner  mass  of  the  plastic  material. 

In  all  these  modifications  of  the  art  and  practice 
of  painting,  caused  by  peculiarities  of  the  ground, 
the  differences  caused  by  the  changing  material 
and  the  greater  or  less  facility  with  which  the 
artist  can  work  upon  it  are  of  extreme  interest  to 
the  student.  The  touch  of  the  draughtsman  who 
is  scribing  with  a  sharp  tool  a  yielding  but  still 
firm  and  resistant  surface,  like  that  of  plaster,  is  very 
different  from  that  of  him  who  guides  the  point 
of  a  brush  over  canvas  or  panel.  The  art  of  draw- 
ing, too,  if  considered  in  detail,  is  seen  to  involve 
the  use  of  many  different  methods  of  procedure  in- 
volving sometimes  considerable  physical  exertion. 
The  result  of  these  differences  has  been  that,  with 
the  disappearance  of  the  old  feeling  of  solidarity 
among  the  arts,  the  processes  of  drawing  and  paint- 
ing on  a  large  scale  and  in  what  is  considered  rather 
a  mechanical  way,  have  lost  their  artistic  value. 
A  great  change  would  need  to  appear  in  the  spirit 
of  the  modern  artist  painter  before  he  would  be 
found  ready  to  give  his  own  personal  attention  and 
his  personal  effort  to  the  production  of  exterior 
ornamentation  of  this  character. 


[296] 


Chapter  Sixteen 


JOINERY 

JOINERY,  in  its  larger  and  more  showy 
developments,  might  be  treated  in  connection 
with  Building,  of  which,  indeed,  it  may  form 
an  important  though  secondary  part.  The 
form  of  the  house,  its  architectural  style,  does  not 
depend  upon  the  finer  woodwork  of  the  interior, 
and  therefore  this  art  has  no  place  in  such  a  dis- 
cussion as  our  Chapter  XIV.  In  its  general  char- 
acter, as  elaborate  woodwork,  it  is  an  art  by  itself  • 
and  the  matter  of  furniture  may  be  considered  in 
connection  with  architectural  joinery.  The  pro- 
cesses of  work  are  familiar,  being  in  their  essence 
the  same  as  those  of  any  village  carpenter,  although 
the  worker  in  fine  and  hard  woods  uses  certain 
delicate  tools  unknown  to  the  house  carpenter. 
The  newer  wood-working  by  machinery  must  be 
excluded  altogether  from  our  present  subject  :  for 
artistic  joinery  is  a  manual  art,  and  has  no  use  for 
the  power-plant. 

The  distinction  here  made  between  carpentry 
and  joinery  would  have  been  hardly  so  perceptible 
to  a  fifteenth-century  workman  as  it  is  in  modern 

[  n-97  ] 


JOIN  E R Y 


times.  He,  the  earlier  workman,  would  have 
thought  the  making  of  a  door  which  was  to  be 
painted  very  nearly  the  same  piece  of  work  as  the 
making  of  a  door  of  which  the  natural  wood,  its 
color  and  veining,  were  to  show.  The  old  work- 
man would  have  given  a  little  more  pains  and 
thought  to  the  selection  of  the  wood,  and  even  to 
its  finish,  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other  ;  but 
the  modern  man,  when  paint  is  to  hide  all  the 
details  of  the  make  of  his  door,  builds  it  up  in  a 
curious  sort  of  way  by  separate  pieces  nailed  on  with 
short  nails  and  brads,  the  panel  no  longer  inserted, 
as  in  old  work,  on  all  four  sides  into  grooves  in  its 
frame,  but  held  at  top  and  bottom  only  (and  only 
in  the  middle  of  the  top  and  bottom  edge,  so  that 
it  will  remain  free  to  shrink  from  both  sides  toward 
the  middle)  while  the  borders  of  it  are  concealed 
by  mouldings  "  planted  on."  Those  mouldings 
and  each  separate  part  of  the  door  have  been  shaped 
and  planed  in  a  power  mill,  and  the  workman  gives 
but  a  very  little  additional  labor  to  bringing  any 
of  the  surfaces  to  a  more  perfect  smoothness.  The 
painter  arrives  and  covers  up  everything  with  a 
solid  coat  of  white  lead  and  oil,  perhaps  colored  by 
some  other  pigment.  Very  different  is  the  work 
of  him  who  has  a  hard-wood  door  to  make,  if  there 
is  any  kind  of  architectural  supervision  to  be  ex- 
pected or  if  the  standard  of  his  workshop  is  a  high 
one.  The  nail-heads  must  not  show  ;  they  must 
not  even  come  to  the  visible  surface.     The  mould- 

[  ] 


PAINTED   AND    UNTAINTED  WOODWORK 


ings  must  be  worked  in  the  solid  ;  but  if  from  long 
habit  of  dealing  with  the  moulding-mill  this  last 
good  rule  is  overlooked,  the  putting  on  of  these 
mouldings  will  require  especial  care,  for  otherwise 
they  will  show  for  the  wretched  things  they  are, 
while  in  the  painted  door  all  that  is  needed  is  to 
sink  the  nail-heads  deep,  to  rill  up  the  hollow  above 
them  with  putty  and  to  paint  over  the  whole.  It 
is  not  suggested  that  painted  woodwork  may  not 
have  its  artistic  value  :  — but  the  inevitable  result  of 
covering  your  piece  with  paint  is  that  its  parts  are 
less  varied,  its  make  less  elaborate,  and  its  whole 
workmanship  less  minute.  The  bedstead  and  the 
throne,  alike,  were  simpler  and  heavier  in  their 
parts,  when  color  and  gold  were  looked  to  for  their 
completion,  in  the  time  of  Charlemagne,  in  the  time 
of  Coeur-de-Lion.  The  work  became  more  inter- 
esting as  joinery  when,  in  Saint  Louis'  time,  the 
unpainted  wood  showed  its  delicate  reliefs  and 
statuettes,  —  its  highly  wrought  groups  of  mould- 
ings ;  and,  from  that  time  onward,  the  joiner's  art 
grew  continually  in  refinement  and  elaboration, 
whatever  the  design  might  be  in  its  purely  artistic 
character. 

It  we  go  back  in  the  history  of  joinery  we  find 
very  simple  appliances  used.  The  church  door  of 
the  twelfth  century  was  not  framed1  at  all,  nor  was 
that  of  a  later  time,  in  the  out  of  the  way  parts  of 


1  Frame  (v.  t.)  :  To  put  together  a  frame.     See  note,  Chap.  XIV. 

[  299  ] 


JOINERY 


the  country  built  up  with  stiles,1  rails,  and  mullions; 
the  church  door  with  its  hinges  would  cost, 
measured  in  day's  work  or  in  bushels  of  wheat, 
vastly  more  than  its  modern  successor,  but  the 
cost  was  in  the  ironwork,  and  not  in  the  framing 
of  the  door.  There  was  no  framed  door.  The 
solid  vantail  which  stood  between  the  congregation 
and  the  weather,  when  it  was  closed,  was  made  up 
of  three  or  four  planks  set  in  conjunction  each  to 
each,  and  perhaps  held  together  by  a  system  of 
dowelling,  or  by  a  continuous  groove  and  tongue, 
or  by  two  rebates  which  overlapped  ;  but  the  hold 
between  these  solid  and  heavy  oak  planks  was  but 
a  slight  one,  and  what  kept  the  door  together  and 
made  one  piece  of  it  was  the  firm  nailing  with 
wrought  nails  driven  through  holes  punched  in  the 
long  and  often  branched  and  ornamented  strap 
hinges.  It  will  be  noticed  that  here  joinery  is  at 
its  very  origin,  and  that  such  primitive  work  as  this 
requires  absolutely  the  support  of  the  metal  strap 
or  tie. 

Applying  these  same  principles  to  furniture  it 
appears  that  in  simpler  times  than  ours  furniture 
was  as  heavily  and  plainly  made  as  were  doors, 
dadoes,  or  screens.  In  the  earliest  days  of  house 
furnishing,  when  to  have  more  than  a  few  wooden 

1  Stile  :  One  of  the  primary  pieces  in  a  frame.  Rail:  One  of  the 
secondary  pieces.  Mullion  :  One  of  the  tertiary  pieces.  In  a  common 
door,  the  stiles  are  the  main  uprights,  the  rails  are  framed  into  them,  the 
mullions  are  framed  into  the  rails. 

[  300  ] 


THE   FURNITURE   OF   EARLY   TIMES;  CHESTS 


platters  and  a  tew  earthenware  jars  was  to  be  rich 
in  "  plenishing,"  a  chest  or  two  or  three  chests  of 
solid  wood  were  the  pieces  most  in  vogue.  These 
were  good  to  hold  winter  garments  in  summer  and 
summer  garments  in  winter,  to  hold  bed-clothes 
and  such  floor  cloths  and  curtains  as  were  not  in 
use.  And  these  chests  were  made  in  such  a  way 
that  they  could  go  down  the  generations  without 
deterioration,  namely,  of  solid  planks  held  together 
as  the  church  door  above  described  was  held 
together,  by  elaborate  wrought-iron  straps  or  bands, 
passing  around  them  and  secured  to  sides  and  bottom, 
while  the  movable  top  was  held  in  place  by  strong 
hinges  worked  into  straps  of  just  such  make,  though 
perhaps  of  more  ornamental  appearance.  The 
chest  continued  for  four  hundred  years  the  princi- 
pal article  of  in-door  service.  There  is  one  type 
of  chest  thought  to  be  peculiarly  English,  that  of 
which  the  upright  sides  reach  the  floor,  sometimes 
at  the  four  corners  only,  which  in  that  case  form 
feet  to  raise  the  bottom  of  the  chest  off  the  floor. 
Here,  evidently,  there  is  not  much  room  for  fine 
designing;  the  surface-carving  only  tells  —  apart 
from  the  iron-work.  The  more  elaborate  and  semi- 
classical  Italian  design  of  the  same  epoch,  and  the 
French  and  German  framed  chests  of  a  few  years 
later,  of  the  early  sixteenth  century,  consisted  of  a 
solid  frame  set  horizontally  and  supported  on  feet, 
into  which  frame  the  lighter  bottom  panel  and  the 
heavier  upright  sides  were  firmly  dadoed,  as  partly 

[  301  ] 


JOINER  V 


shown  in  Fig.  109.  In  this  piece  there  are  seven 
panels  in  the  front,  and  each  panel  is  a  solid  plank 
carved  into  the  semblance  of  florid  Gothic  tracery, 
with  the  royal  arms  of  France  on  an  escutcheon. 


Fig.   109.     Part  ot  a  carved  oak  chest  at  Loches  ; 
carved  panels,  the  arms  of  France  in  the 
central  panel.     Work  of  about  1500 

(Private  collection) 

The  wrought-iron  fittings  are  here  reduced  to  four 
corner  straps,  three  flat  hinges  of  no  decorative 
quality,  and  the  box  and  plate  of  the  lock,  —  the 
key  alone  being  rich  in  design.  A  modification 
of  this  would  be  that  the  four  corners  would  be 

[302  ] 


THE    RICH   CHESTS   OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 


marked  by  solid  uprights,  and  that  the  sides  and 
ends,  whether  each  of  a  solid  piece  or  framed  and 
panelled,  as  in  Fig.  109,  were  slipped  into  grooves 
in  these  and  in  the  bottom  rail  as  well,  as  is  shown 
in  Fig.  1  1  o  ;  a  top  rail  finishing  this  frame  on  each 
side,  and   holding  the  panel  in  its  place.  The 


Fig.   1 10.     Cassone,  or  large  chest,  with  tempera  paintings 
on  top,  front  and  ends 

(Marquand  collection) 


hinged  cover  would  still  remain  a  solid  plank,  or 
set  of  planks  grooved  together,  and  kept  in  shape 
by  its  hinges ;  though  a  still  later  development 
made  of  this  cover  a  much  more  massive  and 
elaborate  piece  of  framing  in  itself,  sometimes  even 
boxed  up  into  a  raised  central  framed  panel,  as 
shown  in  Fig.  110.  Here  is  design  in  joinery 
carried  very  far  :  the  piece  is  planned  and  wrought 
on  architectural  principles,  while  still  the  construc- 

[  303  ] 


J OINERY 


tion  —  the  make  of  the  piece  —  is  partly  shown  in 
the  design.  The  four  uprights  are  elaborately 
carved  and  with  excellent  treatment  of  their  form 
and  function  as  corner-posts.  The  very  heavy 
base  is  visibly  a  massive  sill  of  timber,  mitred  1  at 
the  four  corners ;  and  the  feet  are  as  visibly  let 
into  it,  held  to  it,  as  by  dowels  or  a  pin.  The 
painted  panel  of  the  front  and  the  smaller  one  of 
the  top  are  simply  held  by  their  edges  so  as  to  be 
free  to  shrink  and  swell  a  little  without  injury.  In 
this  instance  the  front  panel  especially  has  received 
a  descriptive  and  decorative  picture  of  great 
beauty. 

It  is  evident  that  the  simpler  and  more  obvi- 
ous construction  suggested  the  covering  of  the 
whole  surface  with  a  sculptured  design  of  slight 
incision,  reminding  one  of  the  South  Sea  Island 
paddle  shown  in  Chapter  II,  Fig.  i,  while  the 
more  elaborate  later  work  suggested  in  its  turn  the 
investing  of  the  solid  horizontals  and  uprights  with 
carving  of  an  intricate  sort,  deeper  cut,  wrought 
into  high  relief  and  having  much  more  significance. 
Again,  the  larger  surfaces  of  the  fifteenth-century 
pieces  remained  plain,  and  showed  the  beautv  of 
the  wood  alone ;  or  in  very  many  cases  were 
covered    with    representative    painting,  domestic 

1  Mitre  (v.  t.)  :  to  put  together  at  the  corner,  as  of  a  picture-frame, 
by  cutting  diagonally  across  the  whole  strip,  bar,  or  group  of  mouldings, 
so  that  two  such  diagonally  cut  ends  would  exactlv  fit  together.  The 
manner  of  securing  the  two  ends  to  each  other  is  indifferent. 

[  3°4  ] 


THE   CASSONI,   AND   OTHER   HOUSE  FITTINGS 


scenes,  hunting,  repose  in  walled  gardens,  and  the 
simple  pleasures  of  lite  out  of  doors.  Inlay  was 
another  obvious  means  of  decorating  these  other- 
wise simple  boxes,  with  their  broad,  flat  sides  and 
tops,  as  shown  in  Chapter  XVII. 

The  elaborately  painted  large  chests  are  known, 
in  the  world  of  collectors,  by  the  Italian  word 
cassone  (plural  cassoni)  and  are  called  also  bridal 
chests,  though  there  is  no  evidence  that  even  the 
more  splendid  ones  were  generally  made  for  this 
purpose.  Probably  they  were  made  also  as  gifts, 
especially  for  those  presents  of  ceremony  to  one's 
immediate  superior  which  were  a  form  of  delicate 
bribery  most  easy  to  disguise  as  courtesy.  The 
chest,  Fig.  i  i  o,  is  a  fine  specimen  ;  so,  in  another 
style,  is  the  earlier  piece  shown  as  a  specimen  of 
inlay,  in  Chapter  XVII  ;  but  some  of  these  chests 
are  of  enormous  size,  nine  feet  long  and  half  as 
high,  and  intended  to  form  an  important  part  of 
the  decoration  of  a  long  gallery  or  great  reception 
room. 

The  joinery  of  the  wardrobe,  of  the  solid  chest 
of  drawers,  of  the  "  standing  bed-place,"  as  our 
ancestors  called  it,  not  so  long  ago,  of  the  table 
and  the  more  massive  chairs  and  armchairs,  is 
merely  such  a  modification  of  the  joinery  of  the 
chest  as  would  naturally  result  from  the  varying 
forms  and  the  greater  or  less  massiveness  of  the 
pieces  in  question.  The  pieces  are  not  very  dif- 
ferent in  the  way  they  are  planned   and  made, 


JOIN E  R  Y 


whatever  their  date.  A  change  is  noticeable, 
however,  between  the  twelfth-century  work,  which, 
like  that  of  earlier  days,  depended  largely  for  its 
artistic  effect  upon  conventional  patterns  in  bril- 
liant painting —  or,  farther  south,  in  simpler  pat- 
terns of  inlay  —  and  the  work  of  the  thirteenth 
and  certainly  of  the  fourteenth  century,  when 
delicate  handling  of  the  wood  in  solid  sculp- 
ture, carried  very  far  toward  realism  and  left  in 
the  natural  color  and  surface  of  the  wood,  was  the 
charm  of  splendid  and  admired  furniture.  The 
spirited  character  of  the  later  mediaeval  carving 
in  such  connection  is  surprising  ;  but  unfortunately 
very  few  pieces  remain,  and  of  those  some  have 
been  much  injured  by  restoration  and  by  such 
later  painting  and  then  removal  of  the  paint  and 
painting  again  as  the  varying  whims  of  succeed- 
ing owners  have  brought  upon  the  pieces. 

Early  joinery  is  more  apt  to  keep  its  place  and 
its  integrity  if  permanently  set  up  in  a  church  or 
hall ;  as  such  a  composition,  though  subject  to 
whimsical  change  as  fashions  change,  and  also 
to  ruinous  restoration,  is  still  a  thing  too  costly 
to  disregard.  Your  beautiful  carved  chest  goes 
down-cellar  and  rots  away,  or  up-garret  and  is 
gradually  split  to  pieces ;  but  your  carved  screen, 
pew-head,  pulpit,  or  stall  in  the  choir  will  have 
that  inertia  which  is  the  quality  of  a  money  in- 
vestment not  to  be  lightly  ignored.  There  is, 
indeed,   not  very  much  Gothic  woodwork  of  a 

[306] 


STALLS    AND    ELABORATE    CHURCH  WORK 


good  time  left  in  Europe,  but  there  is  some ;  and 
fortunately  the  most  magnificent  of  all  possibly 
conceivable  pieces  of  joinery  still  remains  in  the 
choir  of  Amiens  Cathedral.  The  stalls  are  ar- 
ranged in  the  usual  way,  in  a  higher  back  row, 
and  lower  seats  in  front,  about  sixty  of  the  former 
under  a  continuous  canopy  of  great  richness,  end- 
ing on  either  side  in  a  magnificent  Bishop's-Throne 
at  the  west  end,  near  the  great  entrance  to  the 
choir.  A  part  of  that  great  canopy  is  shown  in 
Fig.  iii;  a  piece  of  stuff  having  been  hung 
from  the  triforium  gallery  above,  to  afford  a 
good  background  for  the  delicately  pierced  wood- 
work. When  a  piece  of  woodwork  becomes  as 
elaborate  as  this,  the  organic  and  logical  character 
of  the  construction  is  certain  to  disappear.  The 
artist  becomes  in  a  sense  too  architectural  in  his 
thoughts,  and  cuts  and  joins  his  pieces  of  oak  as  if 
they  were  stone.  It  is  even  doubtful  whether  a 
design  in  which  the  structure  should  be  insisted  on 
would  be  effective.  The  chances  are  that  it  would 
lose  so  much  in  unity,  in  grace,  in  artistic  char- 
acter in  short,  that  the  loss  would  be  notably 
greater  than  the  gain.  One  would  like  to  know 
how  an  artistic  joiner  of  the  time  of  perfect  logic 
in  design,  as  of  the  thirteenth  century,  would  have 
designed  so  complex  a  piece  of  woodwork.  That 
which  we  have,  however,  dating  from  the  years 
1508-1522,  has  remained  perfect  until  the  present 
day  without  restoration  or  important  repairs,  al- 

[  307  ] 


JOINER V 


ways  respected  and  always  cared  lor.  As  the 
composition    includes    about    no  separate  seats, 


Fig.   iii.     Amiens  Cathedral,  Choir  woodwork. 

of  Canopies  over  back  row  of  stalls 


Details 


and  as  there  are  eight  passages  reserved  through 
the  front  row  in  order  to  reach  the  higher  back 

[308  ] 


THE   STALLS   OF  AMIENS 


row,  there  are  no  misereres1  to  receive  carving, 
about  as  many  arms  separating  the  seats,  a  dozen 
seat-ends  with  surface  enough  for  elaborate  bas- 
reliefs,  the  four  magnificent  terminal  members,  of 
which  two  are  the  thrones  named  above,  and 
architectural  members  past  counting  which  receive 
more  formal  sculpture ;  all  in  addition  to  the 
seventy  or  more  carved  pendants,  and  the  gables 
with  their  cusps  and  crockets,  partly  shown  in 
Fig.  ill.  The  cresting  or  crown  of  each  of  the 
heavy  uprights  is  decorated  with  three  groups  of 
figures:  every  curved  arm  which  divides  two  seats 
has  one  figure  at  least  rising  from  the  smooth 
sweep  of  the  mouldings ;  every  miserere  or  carved 
bracket-like  support  has  its  group,  or  its  contorted 
monster ;  every  pendant  of  the  arched  canopy 
above  has  its  group  of  figures  or  its  cluster  of 
scrolled  foliage;  and  every  short  length  of  mould- 
ing between  the  uprights  has  its  separate  design  of 
carving.  No  two  similar  pieces  are  alike  in  their 
sculpture,  and  the  computations  made  that  there 
are  3,600  figures  of  men  or  animals  are  well 
within  the  probable  truth  ;  while  no  one  has  tried 

1  Miserere,  called  also  misericorde,  which  is  the  French  term  adopted 
into  English :  a  projecting  boss  like  a  bracket  wrought  on  the  under  side 
of  the  hinged  seat  of  a  stall  in  a  church  choir.  The  stall  was  commonly 
made  with  large  and  projecting  arms,  on  which  the  elbows  of  the  canon 
or  chorister  could  rest  while  he  was  obliged  to  stand  ;  and  the  fniserere 
gave  him  a  further  support,  because  he  could  rest  upon  it  in  a  partlv  sit- 
ting attitude  while  apparently  standing.  These  projecting  bosses  received 
very  elaborate  carving  in  some  of  the  richer  choirs. 

[  309  ] 


J  OINE K  V 


to  count  the  separate  thoughts  in  delicately  com- 
bined architectural  leafage  which  the  simpler 
parts  contain.  Now,  the  extreme  brilliancy  and 
great  diversity  of  the  carving  should  not  be  al- 
lowed to  conceal  from  modern  students  the  excel- 
lent quality  of  the  joiner-work.  That  it  should 
have  taken  four  master-workmen  with  an  indefi- 
nite large  number  of  assistants  twelve  or  fourteen 
years  to  have  achieved  the  work,  is  quite  within 
reason.  The  interesting  thing  for  us  moderns  is 
this  fact,  that  it  did  take  fourteen  years  to  make 
it,  —  that,  as  Ruskin  has  said  somewhere,  these 
masterly  workmen  and  admirable  artists  were  in 
this  way  employed  to  the  best  possible  advantage 
for  so  long  a  time,  and  that  the  result  has  been  so 
triumphant.  It  is  a  rather  pleasant  assurance  to 
the  world  that  fine  decorative  work  may  be  again 
within  the  reach  of  modern  society  when  modern 
society  is  prepared  to  pay  for  it  in  cash  and  in 
patient  waiting. 

At  a  later  time  we  shall  find  equally  elaborate 
work  bestowed  upon  pieces  of  neo-classic  design. 
But  it  is  well  to  recall  the  fact  that  during  those 
years  of  change,  when  the  North  and  the  South 
alike  were  troubled  with  the  question  whether 
their  design  should  be  that  of  their  ancestors  or 
made  according  to  the  new  lights  coming  from 
Italy,  elaborate  wood-work  was  in  its  glory.  The 
choir-screens  of  many  small  English  churches 
remain  more  or  less  perfectly  preserved  and  date 

[  31°  ] 


ENGLISH  CHOIR-SCREENS  AND  HALL-SCREENS 


from  the  Tudor  period,  that  is  to  say  the  century 
beginning  with  1490.  The  choir-screen,  or  as  it 
is  called  there,  organ-screen,  of  King's  College 
Chapel,  in  Cambridge,  it  truly  of  the  reign  of 
Henry  VIII,  is  wholly  exceptional  —  Tudor  in 
epoch  but  not  in  style,  for  the  design  of  it  must 
have  come  from  Henry's  friend  for  the  moment, 
Francis  I  of  France,  and  his  workmen.  It  is 
French  Renaissance  in  every  line.  The  choir- 
screen  of  Croscombe  Church  is  of  the  reign  of 
James  I,  and  the  very  effective  pulpit  which 
almost  adjoins  it  is  dated  16 16.  The  screen 
across  the  hall  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  is 
of  about  the  same  period  and  still  more  foreign, 
or,  as  the  phrase  was,  Italianate  in  design  ;  if  the 
date  given  to  it  locally,  1605,  be  indeed  accurate, 
it  is  a  wonderful  conception  for  its  time,  formal 
in  general  design,  but  fantastic  in  the  details  of  the 
ornamentation. 

It  is  noticeable  that  one  cannot  perfectly  sepa- 
rate the  carpenter  work  from  the  joiner  work  of 
these  ages  of  straightforward  design  and  simply 
excellent  execution.  The  roof  of  a  great  com- 
pany hall  in  London  will  be  as  elaborate  in  make 
and  as  complex  in  design  as  the  screen,  and  yet  we 
call  the  roof  carpenter  work  whereas  the  screen 
is  more  properly  described  as  joiner  work.  The 
distinction  is  not  merely  in  greater  fineness  of 
workmanship,  it  is  also  in  the  fact  that  the  roofs 
make   no    such    attempt  at    being  architectural 

[311  ] 


J  O I N  E  R  Y 


according  to  a  given  style.  The  timbers  are 
framed  together  in  such  a  way  as  to  do  their 
work;  not  a  very  scientific  way,  but  one  suffi- 
ciently efficacious;  and  there  is  no  disguising  the 
methods  of  construction  employed.  The  screen, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  always  designed  in  an 
architectural  fashion  ;  it  was  Gothic,  it  was  Eliza- 
bethan, it  was  Renaissance  of  France  or  of  Italy  — 
its  make  was  lost  sight  of  in  the  necessity  of  the 
architectural  programme.  The  significance  of  this 
is  not  that  the  joiner  was  less  of  a  good  constructor 
than  his  associate  the  carpenter  working  in  the 
roof  overhead,  but  that  the  work  on  the  piece  of 
furniture,  the  wall  lining,  the  door-piece,  the  stall, 
or  the  screen,  partakes  so  much  of  the  nature  of 
furniture  —  is  so  much  within  reach  of  the  hand 
and  under  the  immediate  daily  inspection  of  all 
who  use  the  room — that  the  natural  desire  to 
make  this  work  equal  in  style  with  the  stone-work 
around,  takes  precedence  of  all  other  considera- 
tions. This  does  not  amount  to  a  definition  of 
joinery,  but  it  explains  why  the  highly  wrought 
woodwork  within  reach  of  the  hand  differs  essen- 
tially as  well  as  in  mere  fineness  from  the  work 
of  the  roof  above. 

Another  change  was  to  take  place,  though  not 
at  the  beginning  of  the  classical  Renaissance  as 
one  might  suppose  —  for  the  work  of  the  time  of 
Francis  I,  and  even  of  the  next  reign,  was  as  simple 
and  obvious  in  its  make  and  finish  as  that  of  the 

[312] 


THE   SIXTEENTH  CENTURY  AND  AFTER 


fourteenth  century.  Fig.  i  1 2  shows  a  piece  in 
which  the  system  of  framing  is  almost  entirely 
logical,  and  is  entirely  visible ;  and  this  is  six- 
teenth-century 
work,  with  all 
the  decorative 
feeling  of  the 
epoch.  The 
change  was  to 
come  at  the 
time  when  the 
home  began  to 
take  a  more 
r  e  fi  n  e  d  and 
more  luxurious 
shape,  in  the 
reign  of  Louis 
XIV,  and  still 
more  after  his 
death  in  171  5. 
Then  the  more 
elaborately 
planned  and 
fitted,  and  there- 
fore smaller, 
apartment 
seemed  to  call 
for  a  different 

Fig.   112.     Cabinet  of  French  or  Flemish         r       .  .  . 

1    k  ,   rr~  furnishing.  Hut 

work,  about  1550  o 

(Private  collection  in  Austria)  thlS   W3S     111  the 

[3U  ] 


J  ()  I  N  E  It  Y 


great  capitals;  in  the  country,  and  in  the  smaller 
towns,  the  time  was  long  in  coming.  The  Hall 
and  the  Gallery  of  the  Elizabethan  country-house 


Fig.   113.    Walnut  sideboard,  of  the  South  of  France, 
about  1  700  a.d. 

and  the  French  chateau  were  still,  down  to  1650 
or  later,  large,  open,  airy — cold,  except  for  the 
screened-off  place  around  the  roaring  lire  of  logs 
in  the  great  open  fireplace.     The  floor  of  stone 

[3H] 


Fig.   115.     Siena  Cathedral  stalls  and  decorative  woodwork  in  choir 


THE   SIXTEENTH  CENTURY  AND  AFTER 


flags  was  like  an  out-of-door  yard,  for  the  purposes 
of  the  children,  the  dogs,  and  the  retainers  who 
raced  about  it  or  dragged  burdens  across  it.  The 
furniture,  the  screens,  the  tables,  the  settles,  and  the 
stools  were  then  of  a  nature  not  unlike  the  fram- 
ing of  the  building  itself  within  which  it  stood,  or 
of  those   parts   of   it   to  which  wood   could  be 


Fig.  114.     Table,  about  eight  feet  long,  of  about  1600 

(Marquand  collection) 

applied.  Thus  in  Fig.  113,  a  Provencal  side- 
board, of  perhaps  1700,  has  preserved  in  its  up- 
country  make  and  adornment  the  simple  general 
design  and  the  carving  of  an  earlier  time,  while 
the  mouldings  and  the  make-up  is  of  its  epoch. 
In  Fig.  1  14  the  huge  hall-table  is  like  a  piece  of 
house-carpentry  in  its  massive  and  somewhat  rude 
construction. 

Fig.  1  1  5  shows  a  part  of  the  choir-stalls  and 
the  woodwork  accompanying  them  in  the  great 
cathedral    of   Siena    in    Tuscany.      Its    date  is 

[3i5]  ' 


J  0 1 N  E  R  Y 


1567-70;  and  when  we  compare  this  work,  with 
its  extremely  refined  neo-classic  system  of  design 
and  its  wholly  cinque-cento  sculpture,  with  the 
Amiens  work  of  only  a  half-century  before,  it  is 
necessary  to  keep  in  mind  that  other  century 
which  is  to  be  interposed  in  style,  if  not  in  actual 
revolution  of  the  years,  between  Italian  and  French 
work  of  these  times  of  change.  The  classical  re- 
vival of  architecture  had  been  flourishing  in  Italy 
for  a  century  and  a  half  before  these  compositions 
were  undertaken.  That  the  true  nature  of  this 
joiner-work  may  be  rightly  understood,  Fig.  116 
is  given  to  show  the  central  feature  on  one 
side  with  the  arms  of  the  Medici  family  in  the 
escutcheon  above.  If  it  was  said  of  the  work  in 
Amiens  cathedral,  Fig,  111,  that  the  construc- 
tional nature  of  the  design  had  been  abandoned 
for  a  more  strictly  architectural  disposition,  the 
woodwork  treated  like  stone-work  for  the  better 
delectation  of  the  eye,  what  shall  we  think  of  such 
slovenly  putting  together,  such  poor  and  careless 
workmanship  as  is  shown  in  the  magnificent  Ital- 
ian example  ?  In  any  part  of  the  work  which 
betrays  its  structure  —  any  place  where  the  joints 
can  be  seen,  and  where  the  combining  pieces  of 
wood  into  one  framework  can  be  understood  — 
the  whole  is  seen  to  be  as  slight  and  trivial  in 
make  as  it  is  elaborate  and  cared-for  in  design.  It 
is  an  instance  of  the  inevitable  result  of  treating 
your  design  as  a  thing  apart.     This  design  might 

[316] 


LATE    WOODWORK,  NON-CONSTRUCTIONAL 


have  been  modelled  in  clay,  the  model  cast  in 
plaster  and  then  followed  by  marble-cutters,  by 


Fig.   i  i  6.     Siena  Cathedral,     Choir  woodwork. 
Details  of  wall-lining  behind  stalls 

bronze-founders,  by  workers  in  embossing,  ham- 
mering up  the   thin  plates,  by  plasterers  doing 

[3i7  ] 


JOINER Y 


their  work  in  approved  stucco  of  durable  quality 
and  capable  of  taking  a  sharp  edge,  or,  rinally,  as 
has  been  done,  by  workmen  in  solid  wood.  Such 
designs  as  these  are  not  the  ones  to  which  we  give 
permanent  and  enthusiastic  affection. 

At  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  there 
was  coming  in  a  changed  world  with  new  desires; 
the  rooms  of  the  courtier  and  even  of  the  country- 
living  gentleman  had  grown  smaller,  their  joints 
were  tighter,  the  windows  fitted  more  neatly,  the 
blast  of  the  winter  air  was  shut  out ;  a  single  fire- 
place would  warm  one  of  the  rooms  throughout, 
or  a  stove  on  the  German  pattern  was  set  here  and 
there  to  guarantee  a  still  steadier  warmth.  The 
same  tendency  was  still  more  marked  in  France, 
under  the  Regency  ( 171  5-1723)  ;  or  in  England 
after  the  settlement  of  the  political  situation  under 
William  III  and  Anne.  And  the  furniture  for 
these  rooms  speedily  lost  its  constructional  and 
ponderous  character,  with  straight  uprights  and 
horizontals,  and  firm  and  visible  framing.  The 
furniture  was  turned  into  a  semblance  of  carved 
form  throughout ;  or  even  of  a  casting  in  metal, 
so  slender  and  so  continuous  were  its  parts.  This 
is  so  absolutely  the  case  that  under  Louis  XIV, 
and  still  more  often  under  his  successor,  tables  and 
the  like  in  solid  silver  were  made,  having  exactly 
the  aspect  of  the  wooden  pieces  of  the  time,  and 
seeming  really  to  be  made  of  the  material  called 
for  by  the  florid  design  suggested  by  no  possible 

[318] 


RICH   NON -CONSTRUCTIONAL  DESIGN 


framing  of  wood.  The  actual  construction  and 
the  actual  shaping  of  the  parts  in  hard-wood  was 
very  ingenious  indeed,  but  this  sort  of  design  is  a 
little  ashamed  of  itself  and  tries  to  disguise  the 


Fig.   117.     Part  of  a  writing  table,  with  veneering  of  tropical 
wood  and  mountings  of  gilded  bronze  ;  work  of  about  1725 

(Private  collection) 


facts  of  the  case  under  a  semblance  of  continuous 
curvature  and  delicately  worked  mouldings.  The 
rounded  forms,  the  flowing  and  often  interrupted 
curvature  of  the  parts  carried  even  to  the  framing 
of  panels,  the  skilful  putting  together  by  means  of 
glue  and  invisible  nails  and  wooden  pins,  the  con- 
stant use  of  veneering  in  beautiful  woods  applied 

[  3T9  ] 


J  O I N  E  R  Y 


even  to  the  most  elaborately  double-curved  surfaces 
(see  Fig.  117), —  all  seem  to  be  intended  as  a 
denial  of  the  origin  of  these  structures  in  any  kind 
of  joinery.  The  very  high  class  of  the  workman- 
ship in  the  sense  of  final  finish,  with  all  that  that 
implies,  and  the  extraordinary  delicacy  of  the 
sculpture  worked  in  the  solid  wood  until  it  is  as 
dainty  as  if  it  had  been  carved  in  ivory,  —  all  this 
went  to  give  to  the  furniture  of  the  eighteenth 
century  a  character  hitherto  unknown  in  deco- 
rative art.  The  work  of  the  ancient  imagier  or 
carver  of  representative  forms  in  ivory  or  in  wood 
seemed  reproduced  anew  in  the  making  of  wooden 
articles  of  every-day  use  ;  and  when  this  furniture 
was  for  something  more  than  every-day  use,  and 
had  become  a  piece  for  a  princess,  the  surface 
came  to  be  invested  with  such  a  delicate  film  of 
polished  wood  in  fine  mosaic,  or  had  given  to  it 
such  a  charm  of  color  and  elaborate  painting  of 
subject  and  incident,  that  it  is  no  wonder  if  the 
simple  woodwork  was  lost  sight  of  in  the  con- 
summate piece  of  refined  art.  Those  were  the 
days  of  Vernis  Martin1  and  of  the  delicate  paint- 

1  Vernis  Martin  ;  French  varnish  painting  of  the  eighteenth  century; 
named  from  the  brothers  Martin,  who  produced  their  finest  work  between 
1750  and  1780.  The  imitation  of  the  lacquers  of  the  far  East  was  com- 
mon in  Europe  from  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  used  in 
the  Low  Countries  especially,  because  of  the  constant  intercourse  between 
the  Dutch  and  the  Japanese.  The  French  makers  of  fine  furniture  and 
decorative  objects  excelled  all  others  in  this  direction,  and  the  finest  of 
their  work  came  to  be  named  from  the  most  celebrated  group  of  artisans. 

[  32°  ] 


THE   REACTION   UNDER   LOUIS  XVI 


ing  which  that  name  brings  up  to  us,  painting  of 
flowers  and   fashionable   ladies  with  sedan-chairs 
all  in  bright  colors  on  gold  ground  (see  Chap- 
ter V  and  note  p.  88). 

The  reign  of  Louis  XVI  brought  with  it  a 
renewed  and  wiser  study  of  antiquity,  and  a  dis- 
position to  seek  some  of  that  severity  which  the 
students  of  the  day  thought  and  said  must  needs 
have  been  characteristic  of  classical  design ;  and 
with  this  there  came  a  revulsion.  The  fine  curves 
of  table  legs  were  straightened  into  firm  though 
slender  tapering  gaines,1  and  the  excessive  elabora- 
tion of  curvature  in  the  body  of  chest  and  writing- 
table  disappeared,  to  be  replaced  by  very  delicate 
ovals,  or  even  by  straight  lines  slightly  modified  by 
rounded  corners  and  finishing  curves.  Still,  the 
general  aspect  of  the  slender,  light  structure  with 
its  joints  concealed,  and  the  insistence  upon  the 
apparent  fact  that  the  whole  piece  was  cut  out  of 
a  single  block  rather  than  framed  together,  —  all 
this  remained  even  in  the  Style  Louis  Seize,  and  so 
on  into  the  florid  Style  Empire.  Thus  in  Fig. 
i  1 8,  the  design  of  the  years  1775  and  after  is 
shown  as  it  was  worked  out  in  palace  furniture, 

1  Game:  In  French,  literally,  a  sheath,  like  the  scabbard  of  a  sword.  In 
architecture  and  decoration,  a  member  having  the  general  shape  of  a  sheath, 
that  is,  of  a  reversed  truncated  pyramid,  the  height  of  which  is  great  in 
proportion  to  the  width  either  at  top  or  bottom.  Inhere  is  often  a 
moulded  or  sculptured  base  upon  which  the  moulded  piece  forms  a  table- 
like projection  at  the  top  ;  so  that  the  whole  affects  the  appearance  of  a 
column  or  pilaster  whose  shaft  grows  larger  upward. 

vol.  1  —  21  [  3  2  1  ] 


JOINER  Y 


gilded  carved  wood;  and  a  marble  slab;  and  in 
Fig.  119,  the  Percier  and  Fontaine  style  of  18 10 


Fig.  118.     Part  of  table,  gilded  wooden  frame,  marble 
slab,  work  of  about  1775 

(Palace  of  Versailles) 


is  seen  in  its  perfection,  with  mahogany  and  gilded 
metal  in  the  table,  white  and  gilded  wood  in  the 

[  3"  ] 


RICH  FURNITURE,  APPLIED  ORNAMENT 

fauteuil  and  the  chair  ;  all  invested  with  a  pseudo- 
Roman  dignity  and  coldness. 

Throughout  this  whole  period,  during  the 
rococo  work  and  the  later  reaction  to  severity,  the 
mountings  in  metal,  the  marble  slabs  which  formed 


Fig.  119.    Table,  chair,  and  part  of  arm-chair:  work  of 
Napoleon's  reign,  1802— 1  814 

(Palace  of  the  Greater  Trianon) 

the  tops,  and  the  porcelain  or  soft-porcelain 1 
plaques  which  were  let  into  the  wooden  surfaces, 
these  as  well  as  the  use  of  colored  veneers  were 

1  Soft  Porcelain  ( porcelaine  tendre)  is  one  of  those  substances  which 
were  made  by  the  skilful  potters  of  Europe  in  the  eighteenth  century; 
when  they  were  trying  to  discover  the  secret  of  Oriental  porcelain.  It  is 
not  strictly  ceramic  ware  at  all,  but  rather  a  kind  of  glass.  It  has  an 
exquisite  surface  and  tint,  and  takes  ceramic  painting  beautifully. 

[  323  ] 


J  0 1 N  E  R  Y 


constantly  maintained,  as  well  as  the  fashion,  vary- 
ing a  little  from  time  to  time,  would  allow.  The 
gilded  bronze  mountings  were  especially  important; 
and  this  importance  has  been  curiously  observed 
even  in  modern  times,  the  French,  English,  and 
German  collectors  vying  with  one  another  in  the 
prices  they  will  give  for  pieces  of  eighteenth-cen- 
tury furniture  with  original  bronzes  signed  by  well- 
known  makers  of  the  time,  — such  bronzes  as  are 
shown  in  Fig.  117  on  the  corners  of  the  piece,  and 
in  the  form  of  handles  which  include  escutch- 
eons for  the  keyholes.  A  writing-table  six  feet 
long,  with  four  little  drawers  but  otherwise  open, 
and  a  simple  table  enough,  its  top  covered  with 
green  cloth,  perhaps  renewed,  and  its  sides  and  legs 
veneered  with  bois  des  lies  or  some  very  fine-grained 
and  .fine-colored  tropical  wood,  will  bring  at 
auction  a  hundred  thousand  francs  if  well  made  and 
in  good  condition,  even  if  it  has  but  few  bronzes, 
or  those  not  signed  by  a  well-known  maker.  If 
the  whole  rounded  contour  of  the  legs,  and  their 
passing  into  the  lower  edge  of  the  rim  which 
makes  the  table  frame,  be  covered  or  guarded  every- 
where by  delicately  cast  and  chiselled  bronzes, 
somewhat  as  in  Fig.  117,  bronzes  retaining  their 
original  gilding  without  change,  and  stamped 
"Gouthiere,"  that  piece,  fought  for  by  two  national 
museums  and  three  or  four  amateurs  with  longer 
purses  yet  than  the  national  museums  are  likely  to 
have,  will  reach  half  a  million  francs  without  a 

[  324  ] 


RICH   FURNITURE,  CHARACTERISTICS 


very  protracted  contest.  The  table  in  question 
might  belong  to  either  one  of  these  classes,  accord- 
ing to  what  the  gilt-bronze  mountings  betray  when 
they  are  taken  off  and  searched  for  stamps  and 
other  evidences  of  origin.  The  artistic  value  of 
these  pieces  is  somewhat  less  considerable.  Refined 
modelling:  of  heads  and  of  decorative  scrolls  there 
is,  indeed  ;  and  much  judicious  application  to  the 
wood  of  the  peculiar  color  and  lustre  of  the  metal  : 
but  this  does  not  go  very  far  in  the  way  of  giving 
high  artistic  delight.  As  for  the  marble  tops  that 
come  from  quarries  of  splendid  ancient  fame,  now 
forgotten  or  disused  or  exhausted,  they  have  been 
sawed  by  hand  and  then  polished  by  hand,  and 
therefore  are  not  true  in  their  surfaces,  but  visibly 
rounded.  It  is  one  of  the  "  ear-marks  "  of  an  un- 
altered old  piece,  its  convex  slab.  It  may  have 
been  broken  along  the  lines  of  some  natural  vein, 
and  put  together  again  with  an  ingenious  simulation 
of  the  color  made  by  some  cement  which  the 
marble  workers  have  the  secret  of,  and  this  will  not 
greatly  injure  its  value.  Veneer  in  woods  of  natural 
color  or  stained  green  and  violet  and  ruby  red  may 
have  been  repaired  in  the  case  of  an  injury  now 
forgotten  ;  nothing  but  the  little  plaques  with 
figures  in  relief  or  painted  groups  can  vie  with  the 
bronze  mountings  as  fixing  the  value,  artistic  and 
pecuniary,  of  a  piece.  We  are  reminded  by  them 
of  the  fashion  prevalent  in  Holland  a  hundred  years 
earlier  of  incrusting  into  the  solid  frame  and  the 

[325  ] 


JOINER  Y 


panel  doors  alike  a  whole  series  of  Dutch  tiles,  or 
as  an  improvement  upon  that,  of  half  a  hundred 
Chinese  saucers  of  approximately  uniform  size  but 
of  varying  color.  These  are  the  developments  to 
which  furniture  was  carried  in  the  ages  of  deco- 
rative design,  one  refinement  leading  to  another  until 
the  piece  lost  to  a  great  extent  its  original  character 
of  plain  utility. 

There  has  been  mention  above  of  the  use  made 
in  joinery  of  the  beauty  of  the  wood  used.  By 
this  term,  Europeans  mean  in  most  cases  the  beauty 
of  polished  and  richly  veined  surfaces,  usually  of 
veneer,  more  rarely  of  the  solid  piece.  In  fact  the 
wood  is  treated  as  marble  is  treated  —  highly 
polished  and  often  finished  with  such  a  liquid 
application  as  is  thought  to  bring  into  strong  re- 
lief the  varieties  of  color  and  of  veining.  The 
Orientals  have  resorted  to  other  devices  as  well, 
as,  for  instance,  that  process  by  which  the  softer 
parts  of  the  surfaces  are  removed,  leaving  the 
strongly  marked  fibre  and  the  still  more  promi- 
nent waves  and  ripples  of  the  natural  structure  in 
tangible  relief.  Stopping  short  of  this,  they  plane 
and  polish  the  unstained,  unaltered  natural  wood 
and  take  a  delight,  hard  for  an  Occidental  to  share, 
in  the  slight  and  delicate  cloudings  of  the  surface 
of  pale  buff  or  soft  gray.  If  you  are  very  active 
and  prosperous  in  industrial  commerce  and  com- 
mercial industry,  you  will  not  be  able  to  design 
in   this   way ;    that    refinement    belongs   to  the 

[  3*6  ] 


Fig.   i  20.   Cupboard  in  red  cedar,  with  brass  strap  hinges,  the 
design  of  George  Fletcher  Babb,  in  1880.  Private 
house,  New  York  City 


CARVED   AND   PAINTED  DECORATION 


tranquil  people  leading  undisturbed,  and,  in  our 
sense,  unambitious  lives. 

There  is  still,  however,  something  which  may 
be  done  in  the  twentieth  century  and  in  the  act- 
ive and  self-asserting  European  lands.  Fig.  1 20 
shows  something  that  was  done  in  the  last  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century  and  in  the  United  States. 
This  is  a  closed  cupboard  built  above  a  fireplace 
in  a  New  York  City  house.  The  material  is  red 
cedar,  and  the  whole  was  built  and  carved  from 
the  highly  wrought,  full-sized  drawings  made  by 
the  designer  ;  the  filling  of  each  oval  medallion  is 
a  letter,  B. 

A  word  should  be  said  about  painting  furniture  ; 
but  when  the  painting  becomes  more  than  mere 
chromatic  decoration  of  framework  and  panelling, 
it  reaches  at  once  the  scope  of  painting  of  signifi- 
cance and  representation,  for  which  see  Chapter 
XXV.  The  prepared  surfaces  of  wood  lend  them- 
selves perfectly  to  landscape  or  figure  subject,  and 
a  whole  school  of  design  grew  up  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  in  Holland  and  elsewhere,  based 
upon  the  decorating  of  plainly  formed  cabinets 
and  tables,  chests  of  drawers  and  wainscoting, 
which  are  wrought  in  color  to  the  highest  pitch 
of  painted  design.  Thus,  a  cabinet  may  have  four 
or  eight  landscapes  on  the  front,  capable  of  com- 
parison even  with  the  work  of  the  recognized 
masters  in  the  galleries ;  though  indeed  such  pieces 
are  rare.     In  the  nineteenth  century  the  work  of 

[  3^7  ] 


JOINERY 


a  very  few  artists  took  a  similar  direction  ;  the 
Frenchmen  tried  to  imitate  the  glories  of  the 
eighteenth-century  varnish-painting  ;  the  English- 
men, going  farther  back,  kept  before  them  a^ 
models  the  simple  painting  in  distemper  of  the 
fourteenth-century  pieces.  All  this,  however,  has 
but  little  connection  with  joinery  and  must  be 
considered  a  part  of  the  great  subject  of  painted 
decoration. 


END  OF  VOL.  I 


[328] 


GETTY  RESEARCH  INSTITUTE 


3  3125  01430  1861 


